


Until The Day I Die | s.w | 1

by gunmercforhire



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Post-Zombie Apocalypse, Shane Walsh - Freeform, Shane Walsh TWD, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies, daryl dixon - Freeform, rick grimes - Freeform, the walking dead - Freeform, twd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-01 22:42:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 28
Words: 64,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19186795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gunmercforhire/pseuds/gunmercforhire
Summary: "Are we all buddy-buddy now?" He looked up and asked me, trying not to be too straightforward."We're gettin' there."-In a world that is unforgiving and plague-ridden, there are only so few things you can do to make yourself feel better about your situation.Becoming friends with someone who you hate isn't one of those things, but Lillian has a knack for breaking rules every chance she can get.-[COMPLETED]oc × Shane Walsh.TWD - [post] season 2 +2017 @gunmercforhire





	1. Death Borrows Souls

All of the buildings were on fire, including the manager's office to the west of the walls. A tin roofing shielded the boards we had placed alongside the backside of the empty motel. Most nights you could hear the monsters banging against the walls, scratching their rotting nails across the slick surfaces. 

It scared some of the children, so we had to reinforce them more. I tried to find more wood, but the lumber yard down the highway was already overrun with those things, and it was too dangerous. By the time the scavenge crew and I had gotten back, the motel was on fire.

I'm definitely not over-exaggerating this time. Someone had poured gasoline across the wooden doors, and set them on fire with the flick of a match. People were trapped where they stood, and others died in the flames that surrounded their bedrooms. 

At first I wasn't sure why someone would want to do this to us; we minded our own business, and never stole from others. But I guess the people who did this had to have some reason, whether they wanted us gone or our supplies. I'm not strong on the supplies, considering the storage was the first building to go down in flames.

It was hard to get every survivor out, but Freya and I made sure that we would be the last to go in order to help out those in need. We tried to get the children out first, considering they had so much to live for. 

All of the emergency vehicles, (mostly vans, and SUVs) which there were only seven, were completely gone by the time everyone was out of the fire zone. Smoke was covering everything, filling our lungs with a burning sensation as Freya and I walked through it. Roamers had already started to invade the camp, but it was hard to see anything in front of us. 

Dodging and ducking through and around things led us to an open space where the smoke had started to clear. There were still no signs of anyone left. Just as we were about to give up looking for a vehicle, Freya pulled me towards headlights. 

"Hey! Hey, help us!" She started to scream, stopping between words to cough up whatever she started to breath in. Her grasp on my arm tightened until her nails were digging into my skin, which caused me to wince with the sharp, needle-like pain that coursed through my arm.

"Over here!" I screamed along with her. Freya let go of me, and started to wave her arms in a swaying motion to get their attention. Almost as if they had heard her, gunshots started to fire in the air. I wasn't sure which side was shooting, but they were getting louder and louder as we walked closer to the entrance where the gates were smashed open. 

"There's no where else to go, come on Lilian!" Freya pulled me ahead of her, pushing my body forward so I would move. But I couldn't; for some reason I was frozen stiff. Everything around us was gone, and if only I had been there to do something about it. I shouldn't have gone with the scavenge team today, and I realize it now.

"Hey! Hey, hey, over here! Come on!" A loud voice rang out as the large van stopped right in front of us. A familiar face smiled at the two of us, shooting the guns in his hands behind us at the Roamers who were getting too close to us. 

"Austin!" I yelled, pulling on Freya to accompany me to the van. Austin slid the side door open for us to go through before the two of us practically jumped inside and into the back. 

I unraveled myself from Freya, sitting up to look out of the front windshield. You could hardly see anything unless it was five feet in front of you. The smoke was getting too thick, which meant we had to leave as soon as possible. 

"Nice of you to drop in." Austin waved at us. I rolled my eyes, helping the girl beside me onto her knees so she could see over the backseat at the window. 

"Now is not the time for jokes." Another man mumbled to himself. He sat in the passenger seat, guiding the driver through the crowded camp with ease, as if he knew every inch of it. It was hard not to, considering it wasn't as big as you think. 

"That's Logan. He's kind of an ass, but y'know I guess?" Austin grinned widely, firing off more rounds of ammunition behind us at the parking lot. Freya covered her ears from the noise and started to rock herself back and forth, closing her eyes tightly. I waved slightly at Logan, who completely ignored my gesture. 

"Cole is driving. I'm sure you've heard of him. Mr. Bigshot who set up the camp three months ago." Austin yelled over screams of people who were getting their necks ripped out by Roamers at every angle. I tried not to acknowledge them, but I turned around and looked out of the back window anyway.

"I've seen him a few times." I whispered. Austin snorted, stopping a moment to shoot at the people who were being turned into food. They fell to the ground as the bullet lodged itself into their brains. I didn't know how to feel about any of this. He ended their suffering, but we could have prevented this.

"Of course you have. He's your brother." Austin rolled his eyes, smacking himself in the head a couple of times before continuing to fire bullets out behind us. Cole never turned his head to face me, and neither did anyone else after that. 

We were all just running away from the flames, it's not like we were going to become best friends. What did I expect? We'd swap war stories and go to a bar to get drunk with one another? No. 

The van was silent after Austin ran out of bullets for his machine gun in a matter of five minutes of firing non stop.   
What he didn't realize is the sound the gun was emitting would draw more attention to the motel, which would make it harder for people to escape safely. 

Of course, I didn't say anything because I don't exactly know him that well, which meant he could stab me at anytime and feel no remorse whatsoever. That's what scared me the most about strangers in this era. Killing was a part of their daily life, and adding another body to the pile wouldn't make them toss and turn at night like it did for the rest of us.

"Where are we going to go?" I asked my brother. He didn't reply to me, which led Logan to take his place. He turned around in the seat, unbuckling the seat belt he had wrapped around his body to face me completely. 

"We'll figure it out. There's a gas station a few more miles down here. It'll take about thirty minutes, don't worry. We can rest there for the night." 

I didn't say anything, I just nodded along to his words. Austin was sitting quietly in the backseat while Freya and I were sitting beside each other in the back of the van where you would keep equipment of some sort. I didn't know what it was officially called. 

Just to think, all of this happened in a matter of five hours. The scavenge team was only gone for three of those, which meant it took at least an hour to light up the motel with flames. Freya and I were trying to evacuate people for a complete hour while sucking up smoke in the process of all of that madness. 

My entire body was hurting. From my legs, to my lungs, up to the migraine in my head that made every word that someone spoke turn into a scream that killed my eardrums and made my head pound with an awful burst. 

With another small glance back at the smoke that started to clear from the area,   
I saw at least five Roamers trudging our way. Austin's gunfire probably led them to us, which meant more could be behind those ones, following in one another's footsteps.

"Do you always wear your uniform?" I finally urged the awkward silence to leave by turning my head to ask Austin questions. He was sort of a familiar face; I just haven't seen Logan around the camp in these three months it's been running. Was he new to the group?

"I want people to feel safe when they're around me. The men and women in the Army were trained to use guns, and that puts people at ease." Austin didn't even turn around to look at me as he spoke. 

I nodded, but I doubted he saw me do anything at all. Austin was too busy reading a very, very old sports pamphlet that was underneath one of the seats. I shrunk back beside Freya, who hadn't stopped rocking herself this entire time. 

I felt obligated to say something to comfort her, but I wasn't sure what she wanted to hear, and if I could make it sound as if everything would work out in the end. I knew that sooner or later someone, or something, would threaten our camp like that. I'm just not one hundred percent sure who did that to our camp, and why?

"Austin." 

"Hmm?" He still didn't bother to turn my way, which was kind of annoying me. But I had other things to worry about right now.

"Do you have any idea who did that to us?" I asked him curiously. Half of me thought he knew exactly who would want to destroy something that was blossoming into a great thing, and the other half of me knew he had no idea whatsoever. 

"Not sure who he was, but according to your scavenge team, he had been from a neighboring camp about four miles back north. I don't know what he wanted, though." 

"Great. So we don't know who that guy is, so there's no telling what we're up against." Logan butted into the conversation, sighing as loudly as he could so everyone could hear his frustration. 

"That's right, sweetheart! Ain't no telling who that douche was!" Austin sniggered at his idiotic remark. Logan rolled his eyes, looking back towards the map so he could direct my brother where to go. 

Although Austin seemed childish and annoying so far, I'm sure he's serious about the entire camp bursting into flames. Maybe he's one of those people who cope through pain by making people laugh, (or attempting to).

My sister used to be like that. No matter how bad of a day she had gone through, there wasn't a way to get her to shut up at dinnertime. With all of the jokes she had read from those cheesy books you'd find on clearance at the store, next to the sudoku worksheets. 

We all used to be childish before the world was gone, but after her death, my family's world fell into a sad pit of despair and serious talks to one another. No more cheesy jokes at the dinner table, and no more running through spinklers, or finding things in the back garden to add to our bug collections. 

That was such a long time ago, but my mind couldn't help but to drift off back then when the world was so easy and pure. Before others started to bite off our flesh for dinner, and before people shot at one another for fun. 

It's not good to live in the past, and I know that, but there were no conversations to get my mind off of what it was like then. Usually Cole would force my mind back by giving me chores to do around the camp, but my head would always spring back to its earlier thoughts.

I'm just glad that my sister died before she had the chance to see what became of the world five years later. If anything, she could have died a gruesome death by these monsters, but her time came before any of this happened. 

In a way I was happy for her. Now she wouldn't have to quiet down while laughing too loudly, or watch her loved ones die by getting bitten. This world would have sucked the life from her before we knew it. I'm sure Cole and I could agree on this.


	2. You're Not Innocent

It took longer than thirty minutes to reach the gas station that Logan was talking about the entire trip. Apparently the scavenge team hadn't looked there before because it was boarded up, so they decided to skip it.

He wasn't sure how many supplies would be there though, so he made Austin promise not to hit him if there was nothing left. Apparently the two had some sort of history with one another, and I wasn't about to ask what happened in that timeline. 

After I had asked Austin about his uniform, he went quiet for the rest of the ride. I didn't even know anything about this man, but I could tell what I said had bothered him to the extent of silence. 

But sooner or later, the silence would be broken by someone, so why not myself? 

"How much longer?" I asked to no one in particular. I was taking few breaths while comforting Freya as she had a mental breakdown. I don't blame her, though.  
Out home was gone now, and there wasn't much we could do about it. 

"Five minutes?" Cole yelled just loud enough for me to hear. Usually he speaks in a calm, solemn voice, and that was the first time in years I heard him raise his voice at anyone. I guess the calm streak will soon be demolished as time goes on.

I didn't reply, not even with a simple nod of my head. I never felt the need to reply at awkward situations, especially now. I mean, if I did he might break down and yell again, or worse. 

I know I shouldn't feel this way about my own blood relative, but Cole scared me. Even when we were little, I wouldn't dream of double-crossing him; so much could go wrong.

But nowadays, with a trait like that, it helps you get by in this world. Perhaps his temper will be helpful in the near future. 

"This is the station you were going on about!?" Austin yelped, slamming his fist against the metal roofing that covered the van. Logan nodded wearily, shrugging his shoulders loosely before unbuckling his seat belt.

"You wanted somewhere, I gave you somewhere. There's all kinds of shit on this map, how did I know this place sucked!?" Logan hissed back, looking over to Cole, then.

"Logan is right, though. Might as well stay here; it's already dark. The next place isn't till fifty or so miles. No point of driving anymore." Cole said, training his eyes on Freya, then to me.

"Is she gonna be okay, sis?" 

I shrugged effortlessly, pulling back Freya's hair into a ponytail. Her bangs were soaked with tears still, but otherwise she was perfectly fine; I think.

"Come on, Frey. Let's go inside, we'll be safe in there." I tugged at her sleeves, wiping away the loose tears that fell from her eyelashes. 

I realized now that she was in shock, but in a weird way. Usually people are prone to seizures, or other symptoms, but she was just staring at the ground with wide, red, puffy eyes. It was hard for me to act as if nothing had happened to her. 

"Come on, then. We gotta go inside now. It's dark outside." There wasn't a sure-fire way to get her inside of the gas station, so I'm pretty certain that one of the guys'll have to carry her in. She wasn't going to be moving anytime soon, that was obvious. 

"Austin, can you help me?" I nudged him as we stepped out of the van. At first he shook his head, then as I turned back to Freya, Austin pushed passed me, grabbing onto her body. 

Freya was still; a lifeless rag-doll. I was surprised she didn't snap open when Austin picked her up. She was always tense when I even wiped away her tears. 

I nodded a small "thank you" to Austin, grabbing a duffle bag filled with who-knows-what that Cole had somehow managed to grab from the armory before all hell broke loose. I was destined to ask him, but kept my thoughts to myself instead. 

"Home sweet gas station!" Logan grinned at the four of us. I started to pull out the gun I had tucked into the back of my jeans, but then remembered I had already used the bullets. 

Desperate and out of ammo, I started searching through the duffle bag that lay beside my feet. There wasn't anything good, besides a few hunting knifes, a shotgun with two bullets left, and an empty cardboard box that was supposed to be filled with bullets, but it was empty instead. 

"You didn't grab anything good!" I rolled my eyes, wrapping my fingers around the ends of a knife and picking it up. I thought it would be heavier than this, but I guess I was wrong. I've never held a knife like this before. I had always used a machete, or some version of a gun, but never a small knife. 

Austin and Cole both rolled their eyes at me, clearly annoyed at my weapon choice. It's not like there was anything else to choose from this garbage pile Austin called "weapons".

"Can we just get this over with?" Logan pushed up his cracked glasses with one swift move, looking at the glass door in front of us. Wooden boards were nailed to the sides, creating a poorly made barrier for the doors. 

I waited for someone to start breaking down the boards, or smash a window open with the butt of their gun, but no one moved. It was unsettling as we watched eachother, hoping we weren't the ones to do the smashing.

Finally, my older brother stepped up to the plate, metaphorically speaking, and knocked on the glass window exactly four times. 

Knock, knock, knock, knock.

At first I didn't really understand why he would do something as pointless as that, but then Austin nudged my elbow slightly, almost knocking the knife from my hand in doing so. 

Together we watched the window, our breaths abating as the dreadful silence made my insides twist and turn with anxiety. 

Logan shook his head after we waited for what seemed like forever at a time. My gaze turned to Freya, who sat on the ground with her knees practically crushing her ribcage. A fetal position seemed to be her only coping mechanism. Her eyes weren't even open, yet I knew she wasn't asleep somehow. 

A gut instinct, I guess.

"I guess nothing's in there?" Logan relaxed his muscles, looking to Cole for guidance on what to do next. My older brother knocked once more on the murky glass doors, waiting a moment more before doing anything else.

"Guess we're good then."

"That's what he just said-" I raised an eyebrow at him, chuckling silently to myself. Cole shot me a glare, shifting his weight from one side to the other as I snickered again, loosening my grip on the knife handle.

"Austin can you..?" I motioned to the boarded up doors, shaking my hands in a jazzy performance. I couldn't find the words I was looking for in a moment, so I just started to pull on the wood, scraping at the nails so they'd loosen up a bit.

I guess he finally understood where I was trying to get at, because Austin stilled back to the van, opening up the back door with a small grin in his face.  
There was no telling what he was going to do, so I instantly stopped trying to fight the wooden boards, that were clearly never going to move anyway because of my weak arms.

Logan, Cole, and I watched him closely, cringing at the horrible metal clinging sound that Austin made as he opened multiple tool boxes that were stashed under the seats. Multiple things crashed together, making inaudible noises that made my ears ring. 

"Will this work?" Austin asked, closing the van's back door, holding in his hands a chunky, rusty, old crowbar.

Metal flakes flew off of it as he started to pry the wooden boards off of the glass doors. I didn't see why we couldn't just break the glass open, considering it was cracked already. But I guess it'd leave us exposed to any Roamers that decided to pay us a surprise visit during the night.

"Don't impale yourself, please!" Freya finally spoke up, making all four of us jump in surprise at her words. Austin almost lost his balance, letting go of the crowbar completely, letting it drop to his feet. I doubt it hurt, considering he was wearing combat boots; those suckers are pretty durable. 

"Freya!" I held my hands out towards her. She took a deep breath before grabbing onto them, taking my offer to help herself get up from the ground. She smiled, tucking a piece of hair that hung from her ponytail behind her ear once more.

"Lilian!" She laughed, turning her smile off completely and turning to Austin. The two of them kept eye contact for a few seconds, then Austin bent down the pick up the crowbar to return to prying the boards off of the wall.

"Can I look in your duffle bag?" Freya asked me, bending down on her knees to inspect the contents of the bag. I shrugged my shoulders abruptly, letting them sink down the side of my body. 

I ignored her as she rummaged through the bag, and looked towards the road behind us. Completely empty, without any sounds or groaning of Roamers. 

My brother liked to call them "dead weights", which made perfect sense I guess, but I liked "roamers" better for some reason. It rolled off of my tongue better than the other option. 

"Alrighty! Looks like we're in." I heard Freya clap happily at Austin. I wasn't paying much attention to them, but at the roads ahead of us. There seemed to be a faint noise that I could hear, but I wasn't really sure if it was in my head or in reality. 

I waited for a moment to see what the ruckus was, to which I soon realized that it was in reality. An abundance of motorcycles were heading down the road towards us; the noise grew louder and loider, grabbing the attention of Cole, Logan, and Freya. 

Cole stepped up to inspect what was going on, but I quickly turned around and pushed him backwards into the glass doors. Thankfully it wasn't enough force for them to break, but the crack in the glass was getting bigger. 

"Lil! What the hell was that f-" 

"Shh! Shut up, Cole! Get inside, we have to hide. They could be trouble for all we know." I hissed, trying to push open the door so we could all go inside before they caught up to us. 

"You're being paranoid, Lilian. They could be nice...and that's a 'pull' door." Logan rolled his eyes at me, pushing up his glasses once more. I sneered, balling up Cole's shirt in my hand and pushing him at side once more. 

I was surprised that I could even move that 230-something pound guy that I called my brother. He seemed taken back by what I had done, but I ignored him and continued to pull open the doors. 

Inside of the station looked no better than what the outside did. Trash was strewn everywhere, boxes of old food were opened and half eaten, and did I mention the smell? I suppose one hundred rats had died in that back supply closet, right? 

"Can you calm the fuck down already?" Logan growled at me, stepping over a cardboard box that stood in his way. I shook my head violently.

"I'm sorry but do you not realize what random people just did to our camp? They could be affiliated with those creeps! We don't know anything about them!" 

"Lilian is right though. They could be bad." Freya nodded her head, pulling on the sleeves of her hoodie so they were rolled up to her elbows. She always seemed so shy and helpless in appearance, but she was honestly a good shooter in situations like this.

"Mm. We should just hang out here and wait until they get far enough away." Cole agreed, crossing his arms. I noticed that when he felt aways if an argument was rising up, he would lean against something and cross his arms. I know it's a weird observation, but it happened every single time. 

"Come on, Cole. I don't wanna stay in this shit hole." Austin cleared his throat, lowering his voice as he and Freya met eyes. I watched them cautiously, hoping they weren't up to something. My brother was hard-headed; he wasn't going to change his mind anytime soon so why bother to plan something else?

"Logan is the one who picked it." Cole shrugged his shoulders, relaxing his posture to take in his new surroundings.   
"Yell at him." 

"Oh, come on already. I didn't intentionally do it!" Logan held his arms up in defense. He and Austin locked eyes, glaring at eachother until Freya opened her mouth to say something.

She was interrupted by the sounds of motorcycle engines nearing the gas station. Everyone stopped talking; we all stood silently, taking shallow breaths in fear they were too loud before.

"Has this van been there this whole time, Chip?" A deep, creaking voice coughed as the engines stopped working. I scrambled to Freya, holding her arm to lead her out of the back door. She was so fragile, and the boys can take care of themselves 

Well, maybe not Logan; he seems scrawny and helpless. Although looks can be deceiving at most times, and this was one of those times at which I didn't listen to anyone besides my gut. 

For once, it was wrong.


	3. Be Not So Fearful

There's always a moment in time where you would want to change at least one thing about what you've just done. At this exact moment in time, I was regretting everything I had just said about those men who walked inside of the gas station as Freya and I were running out the back door.

Although, Austin stopped us before we got very far out of the door. I was mad, but then he led us to the seven bikermen who had walked inside of the station seconds before. From what I've gathered from their appearance, they were very scary. Leather jackets, matted hair, and bandanas on their heads. The whole package.

I probably didn't look any better, though. I can't complain much; there isn't a lot of blood in my hair, just tangles and dirt. There was quite a lot of dried Roamer blood on my jacket, I'll admit. 

"Great. So you're not going to kill us?" I asked the man who was closest to me. A smile was placed on his face at what I had said to him, and that gave me no clear answer. 

Finally, he shook his head after a full minute of uncomfortable laughter that escaped from the bunch of them. If I had a collar to my shirt, I'd be pulling on it nervously with a fake smile on my face.

"Of course not! Who do you think we are?" Another one asked me, wiping an imaginary tear from his eye. I shrugged casually, glancing at the others to answer for me; I honestly didn't feel like getting stabbed with a fork today.

"Strangers. That's who we think you are." Cole replied coldly. His eyes were trained upon the main man. He shared the same stare as my brother, which Freya interrupted by stepping in front of them just in time. 

"Well, it was nice of you to stop by!" She exhaled, rubbing her forehead to look behind the seven men at the empty road. Eight motorcycles were parked outside of the station, looking back at us mockingly. It suddenly hit me that there were only seven men in the lobby with us. 

Where was the eighth?

"It's pretty dark outside, so you should be going back to where you were." Freya was almost pushing them out of the door. It was kind of funny to watch her try with everything she had to make them leave, yet they were all bigger and, most likely, stronger than she is. 

"Why don't you five join us?" The man closest to me smiled a toothy grin, showing off his yellowing teeth at me. I waved him off politely. "No thanks. Um, we're actually heading to Florida...my...cousin lives up there. I want to make sure she's okay." I lied, trying to discharge his gaze.

"It's a little too late for that, huh? Why visit now?" Another one eyes me wearily. I had to make up another excuse, which I was not the best at doing at short notice.

"Well, she...went up there two weeks ago and it's not getting any better here, so...it's nice to be around family when the end of your days are up." 

Freya nodded, taking a step backwards to stand beside me. I think I did a fairly well job, considering the odds of their heads bobbing up and down with nods. But did that do the trick to make them leave? 

"She's right, boys. We best be going; gotta get to Atlanta before sunrise." And for that reason, I don't know, and I never will. It didn't seem important to me at the time to ask where the eighth biker was, so I politely waited until the seven men started to file out, one by one, of the gas station, leaving the five of us behind. 

"Now that that's over..." Logan seemed relieved the know they were gone, and we all were I'm sure. "We should all be getting some sleep. But we should barricade the door with something, just in case." 

"The back door is locked from the inside. I checked already." Austin said. I threw my arms into the air, stretching them out from an hour of being in the back of a van. My elbows were touching together as my spine cracked in certain places, getting Freya's attention, to her dismay. 

"Cracking your bones is bad for you." She muttered to herself, trying to let me not hear her. I stood on the tips of my shoes, making my knuckles crack as loudly as they could to disturb her. She groaned, covering her pierced ears with the palm of her hands. 

"It feels nice." I shrugged her comment off, resting my hands on my hips. Cole and Logan were trying to move a shelf in front of the door so that nothing would be able to get in while we slept through the night. 

"A lil' help?" Cole yelled at me, jerking his head to face me. I nodded my own, strolling over to where he was pushing the heavy duty shelf that could possibly kill someone if it fell on top of them. So, I suppose it was the perfect defense mechanism against these things if you really think about it.

But you can't exactly carry an entire shelf with you while scavenging or clearing out buildings, can you? Guess not. 

"So, where are we gonna go tomorrow? We should find some sort of permanent thing, y'know? Like, a random house in a neighborhood or something-" I stopped mid-sentence, placing my hands on the cold metal to help bring it towards the glass doors. 

In retrospect, if a Dead Weight were to break the glass, they would probably be able to crawl through the shelf to where we were. That would also impale them with glass, which also meant that a glass-filled Roamer was worse than a regular one, right? 

"Lilian, we can worry about that tomorrow. Right now we should just get some rest." Freya answered my question for Cole. He didn't seem phased by that, so he just nodded his head and continued to drag the shelf across the carpeted flooring. 

"We need more gas, though. I spotted a couple of cars in the back; we can siphon it from them." Logan then started to say. I wonder how he spotted those from the front lobby? Unless there's a window or he's been here before, I don't see how he could have seen those from the front of the building 

"Hmm." 

"Yeah, but won't we need something to do that with?" I asked, looking over to Austin. He was a man with all kinds of gadgets in his toolbox, maybe he had something of use to us. 

"Well, sure. But I have something, you're welcome. We'll need duct tape though, because Einstein over here poked a hole in the hose!" 

"It's not like I meant to!" Logan defended himself again. Once more, I have no idea what their history is, but it would make a great story to hear tonight. I might just have to ask them about it because, clearly, something is going on here that I don't know about. 

"You don't mean to do a lot of things, do you?" I laughed, letting go of the metal shelf as Cole started to situate it where he wanted it to be. Cole had a habit of being a perfectionist, even in serious situations. 

"Yeah," Logan admitted, " but it's an honest mistake. And I'm not even Einstein, Austin! He was a great scientist- I just know the difference between a radiator hose and a regular one." 

"That's better than nothing." Freya patted him lightly on the back. She was holding her nose closed with the other hands, pinching it as tightly as she could to rid the dead rat smell from her atmosphere that was still in the air.

I thought about busting a window out, and covering it with some sort of string with cans on it, so we'll know if something tries to break in. 

My idea was shot down, though.

"Breaking the window would make too much noise!" Logan answered almost immediately after I started to enforce the plan I had come up with. The crowbar I had picked up was laying lifeless in my hands, ready at my will to be used in order to smash a window open.

"But we'd put up traps! I know what I'm doing, Logan." I sneered, raising the bar to shatter the glass once more.

"I swear to - Lilian don't you dare do that! You'll be jeopardizing our whereabouts." Cole grabbed the crowbar from me roughly, turning back around to face the rest of our little group. 

"We could head for Atlanta, just like those others were. Maybe there's something there for us," Cole stepped up as if he was giving a big presidential speech to his citizens. This is how he acted when he was in charge of our other camp. He acted like the king of douche bags then.

"Atlanta is a big city, what if it's overrun? We'll be outnumbered." Freya turned her scared expression over to me, hoping I'd knock some sense into this brother of mine. 

As if on cue, Austin shook his head in disbelief. Although he was standing about three feet away from me, I could feel the bottled up anger that radiated off of his body, and it was not pleasent. 

"You said we'd go down and try to find my wife! She could be with Jaden; Cole, why would you change plans?"

I didn't take Austin as a man to have a wife, or a kid if thats who Jaden was. He was decently attractive, but he had a trigger finger and the attention span of a chihuahua.

"I think that Freya's right, anyway. Atlanta could be severely overrun - we wouldn't make it out of there alive." I shrugged my shoulders, uncertain of the fate we'd have if Cole were to win the argument.

"I think this is our best chance." Logan nodded his head. This shocked me entirely. He wasn't as smart as I thought; he would be walking into a city most likely filled with Roamers from every square inch, yet he wanted to take the chance just to find literally nothing. 

"They bombed Atlanta, remember!? You're going there on a suicide mission!" I placed my hand on Cole's arm, glancing at Logan every-so-often as I argued back and forth with the two of them. 

"I don't want you guys to die. I mean, you saw on the news what happened!" 

"I'm your older brother, okay? This is my decision." Cole pushed my arm off of his shoulder, crossing his arms after I took a few steps away from him. He had no right to make me go with him; I'm twenty nine years old, I'm pretty sure I can take care of myself. 

"No it's not! You don't get it, but I do. You're not the group leader anymore, you failed at saving our last one; you can't have two failed terms!" I yelled, anger bubbling through my veins as he rose his voice at me. How dare he try to tell me what to do!? This is fourteen years ago all over again. 

"You do not make the decisions. This is a democracy, and we can do as we please with our lives." Freya stood up from the cashier counter she was sitting on top of. 

Cole shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose in cold frustration, looking back to me. "Fine," he turned around to look behind him at the empty parking lot.

And that was the end of our argument on where we were going tomorrow. It wasn't as long as I thought it would be, but Freya, Austin, and I had won the quarrel with our heads held high. 

Or at least I thought we did.


	4. Dead To Me

The sun wasn't even rising, or close to it, as headlights flashed themselves in the cracked glass windows of the gas station. They shined in my face, then turned off almost immediately after. 

Freya was shaking my body back and forth to try waking me up. I finally gave in, then realizing what had just happened to us.

I looked around in the darkness, fidgeting around the ground for the flashlight I was holding when I went to sleep. I finally found it, wrapping my fingers around the cold metal and pressing the button on the bottom with my thumbnail.

"What's wrong?" I wiped away the blurryness from my vision. Freya squinted her eyes when I held the flashlight in her face, which was my mistake, and pulled on my arm to lift me upward. 

"Logan and Cole are gone. I think they took the van!" Her eyes were sparkling with tears. I shook my head, trying to gain my balance whilst looking at the window. At that moment, I lost all hope for my brother as I watched the van stride down the empty road with the headlights on low; guiding their path to hell I assume. 

"Fuck, this is bad. Where's-" 

"Ow! What the hell, Lilian!?" Austin screamed as I tripped over his torso, stepping on his arm in the process of falling. I held up the light to his tired face, giving him a small apologetic smile. 

"I'm sorry, but we have bigger problems than your hurt arm!" Freya held her hand for me to grab. After hoisting myself off of the disgusting floor, I finally turned back towards Austin.

"What are we going to do now!? How could they just leave us-" Freya stopped in the middle of her sentence, grasping onto her chest for dear life. I patted her back softly, looking down at Austin as he picked up what looked to be a gun. 

"They left us? When I find that fucking backstabber, I'm going to kill him!" Austin started yelling out curses, threatening to kill Logan and Cole with the same bullet.

"Woah, woah, this is my brother you're cussing out over here - I admit, he's an ass but you don't have to kill him!" At this moment, I couldn't believe what I was saying. The defended, out of all people, was my brother, who wanted to go to a city that is surrounded with those monsters and stole our only way out because he didn't get his way.

"I have to agree with Austin, Lil. Your brother is a douche." Freya quietly muttered under her breath. I nodded my head, crossing my arms tightly together.

"Well, yeah, but he doesn't deserve to die." 

"If he was the one who torched our camp, would you want to kill him?" Austin stood up taller. We locked eyes, standing close to one another with an evil glare on our faces. Almost as if we were sizing each other up for battle.

"Stealing a van and burning people alive is a different genre, okay? Yes, I would want him dead, but we can find another car. Logan said there were some outback-" 

"What if he's lying?" Freya squeezed onto my arm, making me realize that this is all a joke. They didn't really leave, did they? Maybe they went to bring stuff back here, or cars, or-or something that can help us. 

My thoughts were interrupted by the glass in the front window shattering to little bits. The sun reflected off of them, making the floor sparkle as if there were sugar crystals glued to the tile. 

A Roamer was struggling to smash the rest of the glass to get to us. I felt my heart leap as its collar was stuck on a large shred of glass, still hanging onto the frame. The fabric was starting to rip which meant we didn't really have time to watch it happen. 

"Ugh." Austin groaned, taking out a knife from his belt holster, trudging over towards the window. He held the knife above his head, aiming it precisely at the Dead Weight who was still trying to grab at his feet. 

Now, if this were me, I would've gotten my jeans caught on something, which would've made me trip over myself, straight into the Roamer, or the window itself, potentially dying either way.

Before Austin could shove the knife into the Roamer's skull, he froze in his footsteps, taking steps backwards farther away from the window. Freya and I exchange worried glances with each other, then looked back to Austin. 

"We have to go, now." He pulled us along towards the back of the building, where the supply closet was. I tried to take my arm away from his grasp, but his fingers were wrapped tightly around me.

"Like, right-right now?" I raised an eyebrow at him, searching his face for any sign of emotion. The only thing I was picking up was fear. 

"Yes, right-right now. Keep your voices down and follow me." Austin was trying to lock-pick the back door that led to the loading lot for unloading consumables.   
He seemed to be failing.

Finally, he let go of Freya and I, but not before searching the walls and above the door frame for a key. I tried helping him, but I wasn't much use considering I couldn't move two feet without being pulled backwards by him. 

"There's at least twenty, or thirty, of those fuckers outside, walking down the road right towards us. So if I were you, I would try to find a way to break this door." He nodded to us, still looking for a key.

"Alrighty then. Does a crowbar come in handy by any chance? Because if so-" I stopped talking as the glass in the window broke apart once again. Three Dead Weights were scrambling across the shelf towards us with hunger radiating off of them like a pack of wolves. Freya was pacing back and forth, a sweat breaking out on her face. 

"Just give me the effing crowbar!" Austin yelled, watching behind me as more Roamers tried to break apart the door as well. Shoving Cole into the door last night wasn't such a good idea, now that I think about it. 

"Maybe if we hide in the closet and wait until they pass," I picked up the large, rusty bar and handed it to Austin with a giant heave of its weight, falling from my hands into his. 

"No, we should just get out of here." Freya bit down on her lip, watching Austin pull the crowbar from side to side, trying to break open the wooden door.  
I shrugged my shoulders, my idea defeated once more. 

The door hinges started creaking slowly; Austin pulled the crowbar back one more time, finallt dropping it from his hands as the doorknob fell off completely, banging against the cemented floor with a loud thud. 

"Okay, come on then." I smiled brightly, picking the bar off of the ground to use as a weapon later on. My knife was in the duffle bag in the lobby, to which Logan and Cole took with them like the little thieves they are. 

"Which car!?" Freya looked at the three of them that were sitting in the employee parking lot. I shrugged my shoulders, making my legs run over to one. 

"Just check them to see if they run or not!" Austin yelled, his eye flickering to the broken door, and back to us over and over again. I nodded, taking one last look at the gas station. 

Of course, the car I had ran to was locked with, obviously, no keys around to start it up with. Why bother? Unless one of them knew how to hot wire a Ford, we were screwed on my account.

"This has no gas." Freya jingled the keys into the ignition, turning it over to make the gas gauge power up. She shook her head, slamming the keys onto the floor before sprinting over to me.

"Why are you just standing there!?" Austin asked me, looking around the floor boards and console for a pair of keys to start the car he sat inside of.

"If I break the window, will the alarm go off!?" 

"Um, yeah! Do it anyway, we have no choice now." Freya slapped my back, motioning to the crowbar in my hands. I laughed, holding it up towards the car's window, then letting it fly into the glass. 

Immediately, the tiny crystals were all over my shoes, and the drivers seat of the truck. My ears were starting to ring as the car alarm started to sing it's graceful song of doom, calling every Dead Weight in a five mile radius to where we stood. 

"Who knows how to hotwire?" 

"Look for keys first, you idiot." I could hear Cole's voice in the back of my head, screaming at me. That's pretty bad if he's not even here whilst screaming at me; I probably fucked up pretty badly then.

"Ha! These guys locked the keys in their car." I chuckled, picking them up from the backseat to start the truck up. I quickly unlocked the doors, waiting until Freya and Austin pulled themselves inside before I took off.

"Which way are we going!?" I shut the driver's door beside me, turning to Austin in the passenger seat. He shrugged, pointing towards a gate that led to the highway. 

"Um? Hello it's lock - OH! You want me to burst through, I gotcha!" 

"God, you're so dumb!" Austin rolled his eyes at me, looking behind him at Freya. She was shaking, but mostly from adrenaline I assume. "Are you okay?" He asked her.

Oh, wow, it's not like I just sat on sharp pieces of glass or anything because I had to drive this rust bucket of a truck. Thanks so much for asking, Austin. Love ya' too.

Freya nodded her head, picking the crowbar up that had landed in the backseat. She took a deep breath, buckling the seat belt and tightening it so she wouldn't die. I'm not that bad of a driver, I swear; she's a safety freak, that's all. 

"Okay, hold on." Austin screamed as I neared the locked gate. At least ten Roamers were on the other side, clawing their way at the metal that held them prisoner away from us. 

"You want me to run them over? I don't know if this truck can handle that-" 

"Just drive, okay! It'll be fine." Austin reached down at the floorboards, pushing my foot down on the gas pedal so the truck would speed up. 

"Austin!" I glared, bracing myself for the metal gate that the truck would literally run over in .2 seconds. Wow, luckily I didn't have my seat belt on, or I would have hurt my torso on the steering wheel. Thank God! 

"Holy - dammit, I didn't even have my belt on. Ugh, my abdomen hurts-" I grabbed onto my stomach, turning the steering wheel so we were going the opposite way of the gas station. The wheels still felt chunky, as if Roamer torsos were strapped onto the sides of it.

"Wow, we made it." Freya screamed, beating her hands against the padded roofing. Austin let out a sigh of relief, holding out his fist towards me. At first I thought he was going to punch my shoulder, but he stopped and waited for a response. 

"C'mon, that was pretty cool." He smiled, his fist clenched. I nodded, making my hand into a ball, slamming it against his to make against fist bump. He grinned, looking out of the window behind us. 

The rear view mirror to my left showed that only two or three of the Dead Weights were walking our way, trying ever so desperately to follow us as we road down the highway happily.

"I can't believe we didn't crash." Austin hooted again, smiling at Freya and I. I have to admit, it was exciting to drive that fast over at least ten Roamers. I've never had the chance to do that before; looks like I can cross that off of my bucket list. 

"Technically we did. We crashed into the gate, which tore up the front of the truck..." Freya laughed, turning around to inspect the empty road behind us. I nodded along, looking to Austin.

"She has a point." 

He didn't care though. Austin had a grin as wide as the Grand Canyon on his face, which wasn't going away anytime soon, hopefully. The atmosphere was better when people smiled, instead of having a disgusted look on their face. 

"Now were to?" I asked them, pushing a shard of glass off of my thigh. I had almost forgotten about how I had sat on literally an entire pile of broken window a few minutes ago. I'm sure there'd be pieces of glass in my ass for months now. Note to self: swipe away any glass you find in your pockets after this. 

"Let's just keep going down the highway, eh? It looks like that's gonna lead us somewhere." Freya patted my shoulder warmly, retracting her hand to hold the crowbar she had taken when I chucked it through the window. 

"Alrighty!" I said loudly. I tried my best to sound enthusiastic about the fact that we were literally just roaming around the highways, but, nevertheless, I never told my thoughts to anyone in the truck. They were too busy engrossed in an argument between which weapon would be more useful.


	5. Taking Chances

We've been driving on the same span of highway for at least forty-five minutes, if not an hour. I forgot how boring car rides were without the radio being on, or a book on CD. But usually I wasn't the one driving, it was my brother. 

The good news was, I didn't have to keep watching the road at all times. There wasn't anything in the way that we would have to worry about, except for parked cars that could be moved or driven around. Occasionally, a Roamer would wander onto the road, but Austin liked to bash their head in with the crowbar Freya had. 

She wasn't too fond of that, because afterwards he'd hand it back to her, blood still dripping from the rusty metal. Freya was obviously disgusted, but so was I. Everytime he would do it, Austin had a smile on his face. 

I get it, we all hate these things, but why smile once you killed them? They're already dead, so what's the point of having closure whilst killing? 

"I spy with my eye...something....blue." Freya giggled, looking to me for an answer. We had been playing "I spy" for ten minutes now, ignoring the annoyed Austin who sat in the front seat with me, who seemed to hate us at the moment.

"The Impala we just drove by?" 

"Nope." 

"The sky?" 

"Nuh-uh." 

I had to think about what she was talking about for a few seconds, before a smile hinted at her face. Freya's eyes darted towards the man beside me with a grumpy expression implanted on his face.

I turned to look at Austin, who was staring ahead of the truck.

"Austin's iris'?" I asked her, gaining the attention of the grumpy man who rolled his piercing blue eyes at me. Freya laughed quietly, nodding her head at my answer. 

"I spy with my eye..." before I had the chance to spy something, Austin spoke up loud enough for everyone in the universe to hear him.

"Stop the truck!" He yelled, grabbing onto the dashboard, clenching his fists tightly. I immediately slammed on the brakes, listening to the tires screech to a sudden stop, burning the road with a thin layer of rubber. I turned my head, looking over to him with a hateful look.

"What the hell!? Why?" I looked ahead of us. There was maybe half a mile of cars at the intersection, all facing towards us. Were we on the right side of the road? I'm 32% sure we were.

"What do we do now?" Freya asked, turning her back on us to look out of the back window. I shrugged my shoulders lightly, giving Austin a questionable look of relief that I didn't crash into one of those.

"I guess we walk?" I looked down at the gauges, then back to the not-so-grumpy Austin who was debating on whether to walk or turn the truck around. "Considering we don't have much gas left, and we don't have a hose or gas can to siphon any, PLUS, this truck is a load of crap so we should just find something else anyway."

Austin agreed by opening the truck's door, stepping onto the asphalted highway. I smiled at Freya, turning the key to stop the truck from running. 

"We can look for supplies in the cars, too." I assured her, opening the driver's door. My height, compared to Austin's, is like, a whole foot shorter than that man, so the jump from the truck was like looking at a bottomless pit. 

Why was I driving this again? It's too tall for me, and I almost fell on my face after jumping out. I might be exaggerating a bit, but looking at it from my perspective, it's like a lady bug looking up to a flower. 

"But I like this truck...it has good memories." Freya patted the gas cap, biting down on her lip is frustration; something she always did.

"Like what? Playing 'I spy' and breaking the window?" Austin waved her off, strolling up to one of the cars. None of these have been driven in quite a long time, which meant they would be collecting dust and possibly contain all kinds of assorted supplies.

What I wouldn't give for a package of gummi bears right about now...I wouldn't even care if they were stale.

"Playing 'I spy' was the best part, thank you very much!" Freya crossed her arms angrily, just to unravel them to search the backseat of a car. I lost interest in what they were talking about, and moved on to my own conversation with myself and a plastic crate filled with canned goods. 

"Fuckin' ace!" I laughed happily, pulling on the door handle, just to find that it was locked. I mentally screamed to myself, calling over Austin to help me silently break into this car.

"You need to learn how to lock pick things, I swear to god, Lilian." He rolled his eyes, abandoning where he stood to help me out with the door. While he started to lock-pick away at the car's door, Freya was busy laughing to herself at something. 

I felt nosey by asking, but decided to subtly wander over to where she was searching the trunk of a family station wagon. "What's up?" I asked, looking down at what she was laughing at.

"Isn't this the cutest!?" Freya held up a child's back pack with pastel flowers stitched into the fabric. I let out a muttered laugh, glancing towards Austin to see how he was doing with the door.

"Keep it; we may need something to keep supplies in." I smiled warmly, patting her back before walking away again towards Austin. He was leaned against the car, a smug smile on his face.

"What?" I raised an eyebrow, ducking my head to reach inside of the backseat to grab the plastic crate filled with goodies. Austin shrugged his shoulders.

"You're welcome."

"Ooh. I didn't say 'thank you'." I stuck my tongue out at him, grasping the crate of supplies in my hands. "Yo, Frey! I need your backpack." 

<><><><>

It didn't take that long for me to get bored of looking through cars, and shifting though boxes, just to find nothing 90% of the time. I finally called it in and stopped looking through cars unless I saw something in plain sight. Austin got mad at me for exactly that reason, but who cares?

"You can't be serious?" He huffed, sifting around the trunk of an old car I had never even heard of. I shrugged my shoulders roughly, crossing my arms to defend myself.

"Freya's backpack is almost full, and so is mine. We don't even have a car to put it all in, Austin." I frowned at him. He didn't seem to care. In fact, Austin had a mad expression as he slammed the trunk down in defeat when he found nothing of use to us.

"Why don't you and Freya scout ahead? Look up front and see if you can find a car that's acessable." 

"Fine," I took a deep breath, trying to contain my anger. "We'll scout ahead. Come on, Freya." I waved her over to where Austin and I were standing. 

She took her time to walk, but caught up to me as I started off in the opposite direction the truck was parked. She smiled politely, watching ahead of us at the abundance of cars in our way. 

"Lil, what's that?" She pointed towards the back windshield of a car. Paint was trickled all over it, spelling a sentence. The rain must have washed it away, because it was clearly ureadable now to even the people who wrote it in the first place.

"I don't know..." I whispered as we got closer to the car. Freya took another step towards it, training her eyes on the writing, clearly trying her best to read it. 

As she attempted to decipher what was scrawled across the window, I took the time to stare down at the cans of food, bottles of water, and other assortments placed on the trunk. I almost felt like grabbing them and stuffing the cans into the backpack I had found in a car, which I now carried around, but then remembered these were probably for someone else. So I left them alone.

"...something about 'staying here' and 'checking in'." Freya looked back to me, shrugging her shoulders. I nodded my thanks, checking the surroundings for anyone who was close to us besides ourselves.

Austin was way behind us, still rummaging through old boxes and suitcases. But I had the feeling we were being watched my someone. Maybe it was all in my head, but a sudden chill ran up my spine as the leaves in the trees started to rustle. 

"Freya, be still." I whispered, lowering my hand to hers, reaching for the bloody crowbar she held in her hand still. Freya froze instantly, loosening the grip of the bar, cringing her neck as it fell to the asphalt. I sighed, not bothering to pick it up in fear of letting my guard down as I did so.

"Lilian-"

"Shh." I tried to silence her, turning my head towards the treeline beside us. If I looked closely, it almost seemed as if there was someone standing behind the trees, looking at Freya and I. 

But it could also just be a Dead Weight, trudging towards the two of us as fast as it could, which is really slow for Freya and I.

"Hey!" Austin yelled, waving his hands to get our attention. I mentally face-palmed, turning around to look at him completely. 

"What!?" 

"What'd you guys find?" Austin asked, sprinting over to us, looking down at the writing that covered the back window. He stared at it for a minute, then looked up at me with a confused expression, crossing his arms awkwardly. 

"Who's Sophia?" 

"You can read that?" I raised an eyebrow at him, looking at Freya who, also, had a confused expression on her face. She shrugged her shoulders with nothing to say and looked back at Austin. He nodded.

"Kind of. I know it says Sophia. Who's that?" He lowered his voice. Hopefully he wasn't asking us, because I had absolutely no idea who she was at all, and Freya didn't seem to know either. 

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" I rolled my eyes at him, looking away back towards the treelines. I was really starting to get creeped out for no reason. I mean, let's be honest, there's nothing in the trees. No one is spying on us.

"Well, the writing looks old. Do you think we can take the stuff?" Freya asked, bending over finally to pick up the crowbar she had dropped moments before. 

"I dunno. Maybe? Do you think she's coming back?" I tried to inspect the canned goods and bottles of water more when a voice screamed at the three of us. It made me jump from my skin at the sudden outburst of a stranger. 

"Please, don't take it! My daughter needs those!" She screamed at us. Freya dropped the crowbar again, freezing in her tracks once more.

All eyes turned towards the four people who watched us from the trees as they started to step out in plain view.

"Dammit, Carol..." one of the two men muttered under their breath, running after the women who was walking our way. Freya clung to my arm, her nails digging into me once more. I took a deep breath to relieve myself from screaming in pain from her grasp. 

"Woah there, who the hell are you!?" Austin grabbed the pistol he had stashed under his belt. I honestly didn't know he had that with him; he must've found it in a car somewhere while Freya and I were staring at the writing.

"I'm Rick..."

Everyone had guns pulled out on each other, sizing the other up for a shootout. Carol, the woman who had yelled, was begging me not to take the supplies. I nodded my head frantically, scared of what she may do if I did take them.

"Okay, okay. I'll leave them; I'm sorry!" 

"Put your guns down!" Freya yelled at Rick and the other man who stood beside him. She bent down once again to snatch the crowbar up, placing it on the trunk of the car we were behind.

"He drew on us!" The other mysterious man who stood by Rick yelled at Freya. He does have a point on that, but it would be nice if everyone would just put their guns down and let bygones be bygones. 

"Can we all just put the guns down, puh-leese!?" I rested my hands on the trunk of the car, leaning on it for support while staring at the people in front of us.  
"Let's all play nice." 

"Tell your guy to drop his gun." Rick frowned at me, pointing his revolver straight at Austin; his head I'm assuming. 

"Alright, Austin. C'mon, put it down." I patted his shoulder, smiling at him.

"Are you fuckin' serious?" Austin shook his head at me, resting his index finger on the pistol trigger. I sighed heavily, swatting his shoulder.

Finally, after a bit of persuasion, Austin gave me the gun, which I placed in Freya's backpack. Yes, her pretty pastel pack had a gun in it now. That defeats the whole idea of pretty things being nice, right?

"Who are you?" Rick asked me, putting his revolver in the holster he had strapped to his belt. I exchanged a glance with Freya, then put my hands to the sides of my body.

"I'm Lillian." I sighed, fixing the straps on my backpack so it wasn't sagging as much on my back than it needed to.   
Rick then looked to Freya and Austin, who held dirty looks with the other people. Seriously, why was it so hard for them to talk to new people? 

"This is Freya, and that's Austin." I pointed them out, looking back to Rick, the mysterious man, and another women. He seemed to be hesitating before revealing the names of his associates, which I didn't care much for at the moment. 

"I'm Rick," he clearly said that before, "that's Carol," Rick held his gaze on the women beside me, who begged on her life for me to leave the supplies she had set out for her daughter. "This is Shane and Andrea." 

The mysterious man, aka Shane, was staring at the ground as if he lost interest in us. I didn't have time to feel offended, because I had to decided what exactly was going on here. 

"Do you guys have a camp?" Andrea, the other women who stood beside Rick, asked the three of us. I was the only one who shook my head, and realized the others were too busy searching through Freya's backpack for something. 

"No. Well, we did, but some crazy-ass lunatic burned it down." I rolled my eyes, sinking my vision to the ground level. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have told them our names and the fact that we used to have a camp, but what are they going to do with that information? 

It's not like any of the four of them had a notebook they kept records in. (And if they did, that's pretty fuckin' weird, if you ask me.)

"How many Walkers have you killed?" Rick asked all three of us. I shrugged my shoulders, thinking back to everytime I killed something. 

It was kind of an obscure question; I don't exactly count the number of things that I put a bullet through on a daily basis. But if I did, it wouldn't be a really high number, considering Cole always sheltered me, thinking he had to be the "hero" and kill everything in sight. 

"Nah! C'mon, Rick. These guys?" Shane groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose as Rick continued on with his quiz about Walkers. 

Now that I think about it, that was a pretty weird name for those things. But so is "Roamers" so who am I to complain about a stupid name? I happened to take a small liking to "Dead Weights" myself, but not everyone has the same name for the same thing. 

"Three dozen? Four dozen? Possibly over a hundred, but I wouldn't really know." I had a sinking feeling that no matter what we said, Rick would most likely shoot us anyway. I prefer the head, if it's an execution, because if it's my kneecap, I might just have to shoot myself. 

Rick's gaze was sent towards Freya and Austin. They were standing still, looking directly in front of them at the three people who had crossed paths with us.   
The fourth, Carol, was rearranging all of the cans that were sitting on the trunk of a car. I watched her until she was finished, then looked to Freya and Austin. 

"At least two dozen..." Freya shrugged her shoulders shyly. After another uncomfortable moment of silence, Austin remained quiet. 

"Austin, just tell him!" I urged, picking the crowbar up from the trunk. I had tried to threaten him with it yesterday, but he didn't seem the least bit intimidated by me.

"Seventy three." 

I was shocked once he blurted out his answer. I wasn't completely sure if Austin took a wild guess, or he had actually been counting everytime he killed something. I wasn't about to ask him. 

"Alright, how many people have you killed?" Rick then asked us, grabbing onto his revolver. I would like to give him hope, and say it was instinct, but the fact that I just met him was slim that it was.

In order, Freya, Austin, and I told him what we were thinking. I didn't need anytime to think about the answer, because it was practically clear already.

"None," Freya held onto her backpack tightly, scrunching her nose up as if she just ate sour candy. All eyes turned towards Austin. Hopefully he would just give in and answer, but it wasn't as easy. His eyes made Rick out to be the bad guy in this case, for some odd reason. 

Hopefully their guns will stay in pockets and holsters instead of being aimed at one another; I wasn't ready for an adrenaline rush right now, my head was still hurting from the last one. 

"Two." Austin grunted. I was actually there the second time he killed someone; when our camp was just getting started we were out in a run together and we came across a women who had stabbed herself because she was bitten. She asked him to do it; but the first time I don't know what happened at all. Maybe later I could ask?

"Rick, c'mon. Seriously, you're just gonna- do you not have any sense?" Shane pressed, clearly angered at what Rick was doing; but what was he doing? 

We've been standing here bickering at each other for ten minutes, and not once has Rick told us what was going on. What the hell were these questions even for?

"Shane, that's enough." Rick silenced him. Shane's lips pressed together in a grimace, frustration clear on his face as Rick continued to talk to the three of us. 

And then all eyes turned to me as they awaited an answer, which I wasn't sure how to give without sounding like a complete serial killer. I will admit, they were all for a good, valid, reason.

"...five." I muttered, looking down at my scuffed shoes, kicking a rock on the ground to escape the stares of everyone. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Freya inch her body closer towards Austin as I sighed heavily. I half expected this from her.

"Why?" 

Rick seemed totally unphased by what I had just told him, and everyone in the vicinity. Did he not hear me correctly? Obviously he didn't, because if I were to tell that to anyone else they would have labeled me a no-good murderer. 

"I had no reason to." Freya seemed to be keeping as much distance between us as possible now that I've confessed to killing people. Yet, I've known her for so long and one thing I said had changed the way she looks at me now. It's like she's scared of me.

"They asked me to." What a cliche answer, coming from Austin himself. He wasn't lying, though, not exactly. The woman, who he had shot last year, didn't know that no matter how you die, it infects you anyway. She thought that by stabbing herself, she'd die before the bite could course through her. I guess no one had told her what the reality was.

And now it was my turn to confess yet another thing to these strange people whom I had just met. I didn't want them to think any less of me, and I knew that if I lied about it Freya would call me out.

"They threatened the people I loved."


	6. Pieces of the People We Love

And that was it; the last of the questions Rick had planned out to ask us for ten minutes straight. I'm still not sure what that meant for us, considering the stares we were getting from Carol, Andrea, and Shane all at once. The atmosphere had a really mixed up aura, which made everything even more uncomfortable for my liking. 

Shane was shaking his head from side to side slowly, mumbling inaudible words under his breath as Rick thought for a moment what his next move was going to be. It wasn't that hard; either shoot us or let us be so we can find a vehicle and leave already. I was tired of the same scenery of trees we had been looking at for the passed three hours.

I had only heard Andrea talk once, and that was to ask us about our camp. The rest of the time, her eyes were darting back and forth between all three of us; she acted as if at any given moment we could just shoot them all. 

I couldn't do that. My reflexes aren't that fast, and that's why I'm always getting into trouble with Cole - or, I was getting in trouble with Cole about my nerves. 

"We have a camp," Rick finally said. To Shane's obvious dismay, Rick started to explain to us the circumstances his group was going on, and what would be happening there at the time being. 

"It's not far from here. I'd have to check with Hershel, but what's three more people? You don't have to; but the offer is open now." 

I couldn't believe what I was hearing from him. This was our big break. This was the universe telling us that our search for a camp was over, and this could be our new safe haven from now on. I don't mind working on a farm if that meant we'd be safe and away from all of this madness; even temporarily I would take the choice.

"But you just met us." I stuttered, unable to find the correct words. There wasn't an emotion I wasn't feeling right now. I was excited to get to see this farm, and angry because all of that scavenging was for nothing. My entire body was overflowing with a bundle of joy and enthusiasm that I didn't even hesitate to answer.

"Yes-!"

"I'm not going." Austin suddenly laughed sarcastically at us. My jaw dropped open completely. Why in the hell was he passing up this opportunity!? Obviously I smacked him in the head too hard earlier, because his brains are all messed up and out of place.

"What do you mean? This is a great thing! Isn't this what we've been looking for? A safe place to get away from the hysteria for at least a week?" 

"No, it's what you've been looking for, Lilian. I'm going to Florida to find my wife and daughter, that's what I mean." He spat at me, craning his neck to look behind me at the four people who had been watching us argue, unable to intervene. 

"I appreciate the uh, the offer. I can't do it, I'm sorry Lil." Austin shrugged his shoulders as if this meant nothing to him. I nodded, still not understanding why he would pass up the opportunity. But I guess I never will because I don't have a child, or a spouse that misses me. I don't even have a brother like that anymore. 

My day would have been a lot better if Freya wouldn't have agreed with him on this. She smiled apologetically at me, then shrugged her shoulders the exact way Austin had.

"I can't either."

"Uh - Freya, what?" 

"Austin said he'd drop me off in South Carolina. My family lives up there, and I want to see if they made it." 

And this is the one moment in my entire life, twenty four years, that I've never felt more betrayed. Granted, yesterday I felt the same way, considering my brother is a complete asshole who cares about himself and only himself. 

I didn't know what to say. This was going to be the most socially awkward experience in my lifetime. I would know absolutely no one at this camp, nor would I like to, considering I'll be the only person there who is out of bounds and not a part of their social circle. This is Junior year all over again for me, I can't relive that shit, especially not now.

"I...Freya," the words were caught in my mouth as I tried to make her stay. There was a really slim chance of her finding her family now, but the last thing I wanted to do to her was crush the only hope she had left. Freya had already been so hurt these past couple of days, I don't know if I have the heart.

"Okay." Was the only thing I managed to say to her. 

After yet another uncomfortable silence that fell among us, I turned my head to Rick and the rest of his group quickly, smiling awkwardly. "Is that offer still open for just one?" I asked quietly, still surprised that he heard me from across the highway. 

"Of course," Rick nodded his head, looking at the sky as of it were a watch. Although, I suppose it is; that's what sun dials are for. A built in mother nature watch that works only if you have a compass with you. I think.

"Then I...I guess it's just me now." 

"Good luck, Lilian! Not that you'll need it." Freya suddenly wrapped her arms around me tightly, squeezing my shoulders in doing so. I smiled at her, then looked to Austin. 

"Can you guys find a car?" I asked them, referring to the vehicles surrounding us at the very moment. Austin nodded his head sarcastically. 

"I'm sure we'll find something." 

"Good! Great...I mean...you guys better get going if you're gonna make it to South Carolina and Florida anytime soon." 

"Oh! I almost forgot; you can have the crowbar," Freya handed the heavy metal object to me, dropping it in my hands. The sudden weight that was added threw me off guard, almost making me drop it on the ground again for the tenth time today. "I found a golf club in one of the cars." 

"Get back to me on that bet between the better weapon." I held the rusty object close to my chest. There was still a batch of blood on the ends where Austin hadn't cleaned, but it was the least bit of my worries right now.

Freya nodded her head, taking a step back with Austin by her side again.   
"I'll see you again?" She waved me off. 

I stood there for what seemed like forever. It felt like half of me just died as she continued to walk away with Austin towards the end of the highway, looking around for a sign of a useful vehicle they could use to leave for good. I've only known her for a year now, but she was still like my sister. 

And that's another sister I just lost, and now I'm left alone with my thoughts.

<><><><>

Andrea, Shane, Rick, and Carol were all walking silently, not bothering to start a conversation with one another for some reason. The four of them looked like, at any moment, they could turn on one another and shoot their teammate, but maybe that was just in my head.

There was definitely some strange emotions coming off of them. Carol was obviously grieving over the loss of her Sophia. She reminded me of Austin and his mission to get home to his family before they turned unexpectedly. I tried to rid my mind of Austin and Freya, but everything I saw reminded me of them somehow. Animals, plants, trees - those were all Freya. 

She was a sweet, innocent, cheerful teenager who could get away with almost anything and not be punished for it either. 

The weapons that the group members held in their hands made me think of Austin. He was tough, reckless - an Army man, indeed, to which he lived up to my expectations of being calm and reasonable under any sort of pressure that was thrown his way. 

Shane was mad. Not directly at anyone, it seemed, but something someone had done. Maybe it was the fact that Rick let me come with them, back to their camp. Or maybe he was just a naturally grumpy person who hated everyone he set eyes on. I used to be like that in high school; then I learned that was the reason I had no friends in the first place. 

Andrea had a cold, dead expression planted on her face. As if her entire world just came crashing down right in front of her, which it probably did. I knew that it would be hard to gain her trust; it'd be hard to gain anyone's trust now. 

Then there was Rick. 

I didn't know what he was thinking, or how he felt. There were so many things that I noticed about his behavior that set me off on the wrong tracks. He seemed to be the leader - the one who took charge of all of their problems and found solutions on how to solve them. 

He scared me. Not for the fact that at any moment he could turn around and put a bullet through me, but the way he trusted me right off the bat. Why would he do something like that? Why would anyone do that to a stranger?

I'm quite positive that he needs me to show some sort of potential before I have his blessings for staying in this group with them. I was willing to do whatever it took in order to stay within the code of conduct he had laid down for everyone. 

Shane on the other hand; he seemed to hate me already. He disapproved of the way I was ever-so-kindly let in, and I knew he would take me out if I even said a word to any of them. 

I feared for my life everytime I asked them something. I tried not to get personal, but I soon stopped talking because I ran out of conversation starters that were appropriate. 

"How long have you all been together?" I finally boosted my courage and ask them. At first, nobody even bothered to turn their heads my way to acknowledge what I had just asked. But then Rick stopped in his tracks, turning around to face me completely. 

The first thing on my list was to try my hardest to fit in with these people. I'm sure their group is filled with people who hate to talk as much as the four standing in front of me, but I was going to have a small conversation whether it killed me or not. 

Shane was eyeing me, spotting my flaws everytime I would do something. Even while walking I could feel his gaze on me somehow. It was unsettling.

"Since the beginning. But, why don't we save the conversation starters for later? You should talk to Hershel once we get there." Rick implied. The one thing I noticed everytime I would look at him were those blue eyes of his. They were simply a solid color that I saw everyday, but somehow they were mesmerizing. 

"Of, of course. I mean - sorry." 

It was going to be harder than I though trying to earn their trust. Even when I volunterrily talk, they shoot me down again because it's not as interesting as they'd like it to be. 

"We're almost there, anyway. It's just beyond these trees," Carol smiled at me. She seemed kind of helpless, but strong in her own way. There were all kinds of things I wanted to ask her personally, but that would have to wait until another time. 

As the trees started thinning more and more with every step we took, Shane and Rick stopped walking as we came upon a clearing in a meadow just beyond a large, two story, white house. This farm was absolutely beautiful in every way possible. There were even animals here still, how crazy is that?

"Once we get to the house, stay outside. I don't want you tracking any dirt in there." Shane crossed his arms with a slight hatred radiating off of his voice as he spoke to me.

"Aye-aye, sir. I'll stay on the porch, then." I smiled at him, straightening my posture as a soldier would do for their captain. Or, something like that. I never got the chance to ask Austin about the Army as much as I would've liked to. 

"Lilian, right?" Rick asked me. I nodded twice, still holding my posture as straight as I could make without my spine cracking it in the process.   
"Can I trust you to stay still and let me do the talking? I have to talk to Hershel and Patricia." 

I nodded again, causing Shane to roll his eyes at me. I felt like giving him some sort of sarcastic remark, but was stopped by Andrea; she placed her hand on my shoulder whilst talking to Rick.  
"I'll watch her while you do it." 

"I'll don't need a babysitter. I'm willing to sit on the grass and wave to anyone who walks by me, without saying a single word." 

"Yeah, she's right. I need your help with something, actually, Andrea." Carol pleaded, giving her a weary smile. Andrea shrugged her shoulders, looking to Rick.

"Shane can do it. I have to talk to Lori too." Rick nodded at Shane. 

"What? No, no way. I don't want to babysit this girl." Shane spat out, showing his hate for me loud and proud like a white flag surrendering to the forces of evil.

"You're a really busy guy!" I laughed at Rick quietly, caught up in my own thoughts about what I had just said. I sounded like an idiot now, didn't I? 

"It's only for a few minutes. I'll turn her loose to Hershel after I finish talking to him." 

"It's standing right here, you know. I can kind of hear what you're saying." 

"Fine," Shane finally gave in to Rick's wishes, looking at me with dead eyes once more, wishing I was never born in the first place because then he wouldn't have to take the time to babysit me. 

"Then let's go!" I nodded my head, looking back towards the farmhouse. People were walking in every direction, in and out of the house and an RV that was parked on the other side of the field we walked in. 

It was like a smaller version of the White House.


	7. Drowning in Freedom

Before I knew that we had even stopped walking, Rick, Carol, and Andrea were going their separate ways away from where we stood, leaving Shane and I alone on the front lawn. An awkward cloud was above my head, raining on me with negativity and social anticipation. 

"Stay here." Shane started walking away into the farmhouse, leaving me alone with my thoughts and random people who happened to walk by me. I waved silently, watching them walk away with a mixed case of confusion and amusement. 

"Who are you?" A young Asian man asked me as he walked by. In his hands was a basket of supplies ranging from food items to toiletries. I looked from the basket, to his face, and shrugged my shoulders smoothly. 

"I'm Lilian. Shane told me to stay here. Want a can of soda?" I asked the strange man, pulling off my backpack and unzipping it loudly. 

"A can of - what? Why are you just standing here?" 

I shrugged my shoulders again, taking a deep breath as I tried to find the can of soda I had stashed in the very bottom of my backpack. I felt like giving these things away; I wasn't going to drink them anytime soon. I'm not a big fan of Coca Cola, anyway. 

"Rick said he's gonna go talk to Hershel, and then Shane told me to wait here even though he was supposed to stay here with me for some reason." I laughed, clearing my throat. Quickly, I zipped my camping bag again and held out the soda in my hands. The metal felt cold in my hands for some reason; the can has been in a bag, why wasn't it hot?   
Boom, science. 

"Uh..." the man raised an eyebrow suspiciously, shaking his head at me. "I'm good." 

"Suit yourself." 

"So Shane told you to stay here?" The man asked. What was so hard to understand about what I told him? I explained it to him twice now! I nodded my head, giving in and placing the bubbly can back into my bag again.

"Not sure why. He doesn't like me much, but that's cool. I'm not a likeable person, especially in junior high. But you seem to be busy so I'll stop talking..." I pursed my lips together, holding onto the straps of my backpack so they were closer to my body.

"My name is Glenn." 

"Hello, Glenn. It's nice to meet you." I smiled at him, my eyes training onto another person that walked out of the farmhouse. It was Rick, who seemed solemn and puzzled.

"Ah, Glenn. Just the guy I wanted to see. So you've met Lilian, great. Hershel needs to talk to you, he's inside. You can't miss him." Rick patted my shoulders, pushing me off in the direction towards the porch. 

It suddenly occurred to me that Glenn probably thought I was a nut job now; why do I always act stupid in front of important people? I think he was important, to say the least. 

"Lilian." A gruff voice called my name as I stepped into the hallway. The entirety of walls were lined with all kinds of family photos, ranging back to what look like the 1900's when cameras were just getting good photos developed. 

It felt odd to be inside of such a large house. I think this would be the first time that I've been on a farm, even. There was a lot more to do when I was little then cattle ranching and gardening, but we all choose the life we want, I suppose.

"That's me." I smiled as kindly as I could without looking stupid when I entered the small lounge that was to the right of the hallway. The walls looked as white as they were outside, but, as the hallways were, there were pictures all over the walls, also looking as if most of them were from the 1900's. 

As soon as I stepped a foot into the lounge, my heart dropped to the floor, flying passed me before I had the time to catch it. Shane and Hershel were sat on opposite sides of the room, both of them turning to me as I walked into the doorway. 

"Yeah. I, I um - I'm Lilian." I stuttered drastically, wanting to die everytime a word came out of my mouth without my say-so. It was hard being in this new group; I don't know their views on joking all the time, or if I'm even allowed to talk without being yelled at.

At my other camp I felt completely in control; everyone knew my name, and my story. Even the newcomers who I would help out and show them around everytime they needed help. Now I'm in the shoes of those newcomers, but I'm not getting the help I need in order to understand what goes on here. 

"Rick tells me you want to stay here?" Hershel started talking as he shooed Shane out of the room. I was sure that he was still listening in, considering I never heard the screen door shut as he walked away. 

I nodded my head slowly, darting my eyes to look out of the window at the many people who were gathered around Rick as he started talking to them about something. The screen door slammed shut, which meant that Shane must have walked out of the house to see what the commotion was about. 

"Yes, sir." Was all that I could say to him at this time. My mind was wandering other places while he continued to talk to me about the rules and whatnot.

"Could you empty your bag for me?" He asked politely, motioning with his left hand at the straps on my shoulders. I quickly averted my eyes from the window and started to unzip the backpack. 

There wasn't much in there, actually. A few cans of soda, five cans of various canned items, a tank top I managed to sneak in there while Freya wasn't looking. 

I also had a flashlight, three batteries that weren't new in any way, a bag of raisins, a worn out sparkplug I stole for some reason, and last, but definitely not least, the rusty crowbar that Freya had given me before we parted ways with one another. 

As I waited impatiently for Hershel to finish emptying the bag, my eyes glanced back towards the little gathering that was taking place on the porch. All of the voices were very faint, but I heard one word that I could make out clearly, and it was my name.

Where they talking about me? Did I do something wrong? Say something wrong to someone? 

"...and I don't permit any guns on the property without my permission." 

"I only have the crowbar. I don't fancy guns myself, actually." My shoulders were limp at my sides as I stood in front of Hershel. I tuned him out again and tried to pay attention to the ruckus that was going on outside. 

What he was saying probably would make my life easier in the future, but I had other things to worry about than rules of the farm. 

Just as Hershel and I were finishing our whole conversation, the small crowd of people were walking away from each other as Rick stopped talking. Again, I had just turned my hearing off most of the time he was talking, which was rude, but I heard him say that I would be a good member of the group if I followed most of the rules.

I think that was possible. 

Hershel packed up my backpack neatly and handed it back to me. I thanked him multiple times, swinging it around to fit on my shoulders. The straps were still a bit loose, but I couldn't tighten them anymore. 

"Thank you so much, Hershel. I won't let you down. I'll follow every rule, and I'll help you with your crops and animals if you'd need it." 

"Just don't cause a fuss with guns of any kind and we'll be alright." He smiled at me. Hershel had a nice smile; he reminded me of a mall Santa Claus that hated his job with a passion, but put on a smile just for the children. 

"I won't." 

<><><><>

The entire camp was quiet once I stepped onto the porch after Hershel had dismissed me like he was a teacher. The majority of people that I could see were all carrying on conversations with one another, completely ignoring my existence. Good, that's a plus for me; no need to explain myself to anyone. 

Except for Rick and Shane. Both of the men were walking my way for some reason only known to them. I felt like I was under oath, and they were judges who just caught me under a lie I told. 

"Hello again." I managed to say without messing up completely. 

"Maggie's going on a supply run tomorrow. Would you go with her?" Rick asked me. His eyes bored into mine as he awaited some sort of response from me. 

"Uh...yeah. Okay. Is it fine with her? I mean I don't want to inconvenience anyone." I stuttered, shifting slightly where I stood as Rick laughed quietly. 

"She won't really have a choice." 

"But I -" 

"Hey, Rick! Daryl and Jimmy need you." Another stranger yelled from across the field at the man who stood beside me. Rick nodded, looking to me one last time before stalking back to the RV.

"Who's Daryl?" I snorted, reminiscing on my memories of when I was a kid. I knew a Daryl then, but I moved away when we were seventeen; after graduation. 

"Some Redneck Hillbilly you don't need to worry about. You know how to shoot a gun?" Shane asked me. 

I paused a minute to think about what I was getting myself into. If I were to say 'yes', he might make me prove it somehow, yet if I said 'no' he just might make me learn how to.

So I shrugged my shoulders glumly, my eyes shooting towards the man who was walking our way. I hadn't seen him before, but there's quite a lot of people here who I can get to know, including those whom I saw just an hour ago. 

This camp was always busy doing something of importance. Whether it was guarding the entire farm, or helping with crops, or going on supply runs. It was like a kingdom of chores and business. But, I don't mind because it's exactly like my other group and it made me feel a lot safer. 

"You gon' help me out with looking for this girl or what?" The strange man was standing beside Shane, keeping his distance from me. Shane nodded his head after a moment of thinking. 

My eyes were glued to the stranger who was standing three feet in front of me. His features somehow seemed familiar to me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. 

"Who's she?" 

Shane's eyes glanced my way, then back at the other man who soon lost interest in his answer. I felt like replying, to say 'hello', but my mouth wouldn't open and the words wouldn't come out as I had expected. It was hard having social events when I'm around. 

"That's Lillian. Rick let her stay. Do me a favor and stay here while I look for him." Shane was already walking away from us as he said the last word. 

I felt mildly uncomfortable around this person, as much as I did when around Shane himself. Everyone in this camp made me feel like I was a child trying to run amuck. Leaving me with a 'babysitter' almost made me want to scream at them. But, I can't do that because they're letting me stay here, even if I may be a potential threat. 

"I don't wanna babysit you." The stranger started staring at my face as if he were looking for something to throw him off. I furrowed my eyebrows, giving him a small, questioning, look of displeasure. 

"Who are you?" I finally asked him, just as awkwardly as I possibly could. There wasn't a lot of conversation topics that wouldn't refer to a loved one being eaten alive. 

The stranger didn't answer my question, he just stared at me as if I were a ghost beyond the grave. Or, in this case, a Roamer. 

"Anyway... do you know where Maggie is? I'm supposed to go on a run with her tomorrow and I'm not sure who she even is." 

"You don't know who anyone is?" His deep voice punctured my heart as he stared me down, a hint of hatred on the scowl he gave me. At first I was very confused at what he had said, but then I nodded slightly.

"You don't seem very... okay." 

"I ain't your babysitter." The stranger started walking away towards the meadow where Rick and the other three had just came from. I don't remember there being cows out there, rather than in the pens.

"Hey. Hey, wait up!" I called after him before he had the chance to go too far away. The crossbow on his back bounced up and down when he walked, which I remembered about him.

"You're Daryl." 

He didn't say anything, but his eyes avoided my stare and lingered on a dirt mound in the ground beside his foot. There was something about him that made me question everything he did. Somehow I had seen this man before, but the Daryl I knew back then wasn't as harsh or scary. 

Maybe I was making a mistake by talking to him without anyone else near. Or maybe it was a good thing that I was talking to him after all these years. He had dropped out of high school, but we were still friends.   
Then I moved to a different town, and we lost touch after what seemed like forever. It wasn't as depressing as I remember it to be when I was eighteen. 

"Yeah." Was all that he said before walking away from me, into the tree lines to rid himself of annoying company such as myself. I don't blame him, I make myself out to be that way so fewer people want to talk to me. 

There he went, my childhood friend was storming off into the forest without even looking back to me. Where did I go wrong?


	8. Tomorrow Comes Today

《3rd Person》

Everyone was huddled around the fire tonight. Except for Daryl, who was still out in the forest looking for any sign of the little girl who they called Sophia. The air was nice and cool as it was soon becoming winter time, which they would all need to find more firewood for the time being.

"I don't think we can trust her." Andrea was saying to Rick. He nodded, understanding where she was coming from at the moment. Dale, T-Dog, Glenn, and Shane seemed to disagree. Surprisingly, Shane spoke up before the rest of the members had the chance to. 

"You don't trust anyone. Besides, she never pulled a gun on us. It was the other two who did." Shane pointed out, looking towards Rick, who was clutching onto Lori and Carl. 

"Other two?" Glenn made the camp go silent, waiting for someone to answer what Shane had just said.

"There were two other people who she was with. They decided to go to Florida instead of coming with us." Carol piped in, continuing to hang up clothing on a thin string that tied around two trees.

"Why didn't she go?" T-Dog asked.

"They went there to find family. I suppose she doesn't have anyone left." Rick suggested to the abundance of people sitting around the illuminated flame.

All eyes were towards the girl at the other end of the meadow. She had requested to sleep in a different part, so she didn't want to make anyone else feel uncomfortable with her presence. Lilian was staring at the small fire in front of her body, occasionally stacking more twigs and dead leaves on top of it. 

"She seems harmless enough." Dale had whispered. The one thing he wanted to do was make her feel somewhat welcome in this new group, but it was hard when all she did was sit by her tent and stare at nothing when she wasn't busy doing chores. 

"Did you even ask her about the other group she was with?" Lori whispered to her husband, feeling a small pang of guilt as she watched the girl who dug into her backpack for something. She wasn't sure what to think of this situation; of course, the girl could be trouble, but she's helped out a lot in the camp with cooking and helping Hershel with his animals. 

"No. I wanted to wait until she had a chance to stay a while. I don't want to bombard her." 

Lori nodded, thinking to herself that what her husband was saying made some sort of sense. 

"She's gonna go with Maggie on a run tomorrow." 

"I thought I was going with Maggie." Glenn mumbled to himself, biting on his index finger sadly. Rick sighed, giving Glenn a look of distaste as he stands up to tell his son, Carl, goodnight.

With Rick gone, Shane suddenly takes action and starts to jot down ideas in his brain, including what to do with that girl. She didn't really belong here; all that he had just said was to put on a show for them. Although she wasn't a complete threat to them, he had to do something.

<><><><>

《First Person: Lilian》

The flames in front of me were crackling and hissing as I planted more wood and leaves on top of the bunch. I had almost hoped for complete silence that night, but much to my dismay, the group in front of the farmhouse was talking quietly amongst themselves. 

I had heard my name once or twice, which didn't exactly surprise me. I was the new girl here, the outcast, which meant that would happen quite a lot. 

"Here." A low, scruffy voice took me away from my thought process in an instant. Daryl's footsteps caught my attention as he held something out to me. I groaned, looking up at him with a small sigh. 

"I don't want your dead squirrel." 

"How long have you been in Georgia?" He asked me after a moment of uncomfortable silence yet again. This group was known for planting those every chance they had, just to do it.

"I came home from college and, hey, what do ya' know, the whole world went to shit." I spat venom as I spoke. Daryl was clearly annoyed with my outburst, and started to walk away. I took the chance to call after him. "Wait. I'm sorry, don't walk away." 

Daryl stopped and turned around again to scold me. The light of my fire was bouncing off of his face eerily, making it seem as if he were a Halloween Jack O' lantern that was sitting on a porch at midnight, waiting for its candle to be blown out by wind.

"I just...it was so hard to come home and find out that my parents were gone. They were all over the kitchen, it was...horrific to say the least." 

"What about Cole?" He asked, dropping the dead squirrel from his hands onto my backpack. I mentally gagged, but looked to the fire in front of my feet. 

I was somewhat surprised that he remembered my brother's name after such a long time. Maybe he had locked our names in a box; a box he never thought would be opened again.

"That dickhead of a brother left me. We were held up at a gas station off of I-95 after our camp was burned down. He took the only ride we had, that's why Freya, Austin, and I were searching on that highway." 

At that moment, I wanted to completely strangle my brother for what he did. How could he be so selfish and take our only chance we had of escaping? It was bad enough that the Roamers had caught up to us, but we didn't even have a safe way to escape. 

Now, Daryl was listening completely. He had sat down beside me and asked all sorts of questions about college, my brother, and even Freya and Austin.   
I was reluctant to tell him at first, but then I realized that I hadn't seen this man in about seven years, which meant that we had a lot of catching up to do. 

"I studied to be a nurse. I offered to help Hershel out with stitches and whatnot for his horses, but he says that Veterinarians have a different way of doing things." Which was true. The medicine was different, and sometimes the stitches also were for an animal than what they were for a human being. 

"Nursing, huh?" Daryl whistled in a hushed tone. I nodded, staring down at my worn out shoes that were practically melting beside the fire. He seemed oddly proud, or at least mesmerized by the fact I actually went to college. 

"It was fun at first, but then they wanted me to take a summer course which I turned down."

"And you didn't want to?" He asked, slightly annoyed that I turned the opportunity down for my measly parents' sake. 

"Not really. My mom was sick, and I decided to go home. But she wasn't really sick, she was bitten."I choked on my words, gasping for a breath of air as I spoke too fast. It was a habit of mine; I liked getting straight to the point.

Daryl didn't say anything after that. We sat in a comfortable silence as the wind started to pick up, blowing my matted ponytail to the side of my face. He finally stood up after what felt like an eternity and picked up his crossbow that lay beside the dying fire. 

"Take your squirrel with you!" I hollered after him, scrunching up my nose as he refused to come back to retrieve the dead animal. 

<><><><>

The sun was just starting to rise, and the fire I had made last night was burned down to nothing. I'm surprised I didn't burn my tent down; things like that usually happened to people like me. I've had many strokes of bad luck, which didn't seem to kick in last night.

It was beautiful outside, but chilly. At this point I was just happy I had picked up a hooded jacket from a convenient store we had passed a few months ago. The fabric was disgustingly covered in dirt and splattered with blood from Dead Weights, but I really couldn't complain at the time. 

A lady in a green tank top was walking towards me as I sat outside of my tent, digging through the backpack I had placed in my lap a few seconds before.   
No one had come to make me do chores, so I didn't have much to do right now other than rearrange things. 

"You're Lilian?" She asked me, shielding her eyes from the sun with the palm of her right hand. I nodded quietly and turned to look at her face, completely unaware that she had a gun in her hand.

"I'm Maggie. Rick said you were gonna go on a run with me?" 

"If it's okay with you. If not, I'm sure I can find other things to do around here..." I muttered under my breath, hoping she had heard me clearly. Maggie seemed surprised at what I had said for some reason unknown to me. Was it uncommon to have a sense of manners nowadays?

Her eyes lingered on my hoodie as I stood up. I couldn't tell if it was because it was a cheesy logo, or if she was staring at the blood stains on the front. 

It was just a picture of a dog with a blue ball cap on, holding onto some sort of soda bottle that read "Slurpee!". Whatever that was, I could almost sense the confusion on her face. 

"Want me to wash that?" 

"What?" I raised one of my eyebrows, holding onto the loose fabric around my stomach to search the slogan for mistakes. I didn't quite hear what she had said.

"Your jacket. It's pretty dirty." Maggie crossed her arms tightly, looking at me directly. I shook my head, picking up my backpack by the strap and slinging it around my shoulders. 

"Thanks, though. I can find another, I'm sure." 

Maggie finally let go of the idea of washing my jacket and nodded her head, tracing the air with her finger. "Can you ride a horse?" She pointed towards the stables beside the farmhouse.

I stuttered, taking a moment to tighten my ponytail in an attempt to tame the knots. "Not really." 

"Hmm. Okay, we'll just take one then."

"O-Okay...then." my mind was racing as she started to walk away casually. After taking a few deep breaths, I snatched the crowbar from beside the dead pile of twigs and leaves I collected last night and started to follow close behind her. 

Moments like this, I wasn't sure if I should even consider talking. Look where it landed me last night; I made a complete fool of myself. Maybe Maggie would see passed that and include me with the group. 

"So..." 

"Rick says they found you over by the highway?" Maggie had started to round up one of Hershel's horses, a saddle already placed on its back. 

I nodded my head, offering to help.   
"I was with two other people. Our last camp was burned down by some lunatic, so we decided to flee and found the highway." 

"That's what all that smoke was?" 

"I guess so."


	9. Anywhere But Here

At first, Maggie struck me as someone who would do whatever Rick said because she was scared of him. But as time went on, I decided that she only agreed to this because she had nothing else to do with her time. I wasn't exactly sure if I should feel offended by that or not, but either way there wasn't much room for me to talk. Considering I only agreed to go with her because no one else told me to do anything. 

I wanted to help out any way I could, even if that meant tending to the stables or stitching people up. I needed to show them I was trustworthy somehow, and if going with Maggie on a run would help bring that number up, I was willing to do it. 

The horse we rode on was surprisingly relaxing me. Due to the whole chain of events that I'd come across this entire week, it was nice to just take it down a notch and have a soothing ride. 

"I don't have a list or anything, but just get whatever you'd think would be useful. Batteries, granola bars, stuff like that." 

"Alright then." 

I had soon grown a liking to her. I still had other people to meet and talk to, but she seemed to be casual about most things. At least she wasn't bossy and mean like I had expected her to be.   
I was wrong, and now I know it. 

Maggie and I were looking around a worn out drug store just a few miles from Hershel's farm. I was silent, occasionally shaking pill bottles to hear if they were filled or not. She did the same, and looked over to me as I stared down at a bottle of cough syrup. 

"So... you and Daryl?" She tried striking up a conversation with me. I laughed, unzipping my bag in order to throw the bottle of syrup into one of the front pockets.

"Well, not really." 

"Oh?" Maggie was suddenly interested in what I had to say for some odd reason. It didn't occur to me that what I was saying could affect Daryl in any way. 

"Well, I don't know, really. We went to school together... but I went to college and... things fell apart." Continuing as I may, Maggie seemed to be listening intently now as I bantered on about school, stocking shelves with unwanted items multiple times before finally looking over towards her.

For once in my life, I could talk about him without feeling guilt rise in my chest. 

"It's nice that you know someone else here, isn't it?" Maggie asked me, unintentionally smiling as she talked. I nodded again, resting my hand on the shelf in front of me to examine the contents of yet another pill bottle. 

She had told me we were trying to find syringes and needles first, then to grab whatever we could in the process of looking. It seemed like a good plan.

"Yeah. Not that you guys are bad or anything! It's just been... different." I quickly backed up what I said before she started to get the wrong idea of me. I didn't want to put a bad impression in her mind. 

"I know what you mean. It's been a bit weird since their group came here, I mean, they did leave quite an impression on my dad. He thinks they're good folk, but a few of them could be trouble."

"Mind if I ask who?" 

"Hm. Mostly that Shane guy. He's quite a character, but we shouldn't be fighting each other. We have other things to worry about... that's what my dad doesn't see." Maggie sighed, rubbing the side of her head for a few moments before continuing to explain what she had meant. "He thinks those... things are safe. I don't have the heart to tell him they're just... dead." 

She seemed exhausted, the grey bags starting to show beneath her eyes; although I probably looked no better. I didn't know what else to say to her. 

Hershel seemed like the type of man who knew about the weather on a daily basis, (and someone who would bring religion into political arguments but that's a different thing) but I didn't take him as the guy who thought these people were just sick. 

Hasn't he seen a loved one die from one of those monsters? Surely this group wasn't the only ones who had witnessed some thing as brutal as these Dead Weights biting someone's neck in half.

"He shouldn't be thinking like that, I know. It's just... he sees people, not monsters. Y'know?" 

"...yeah." but that was a lie. How do I say "your father is crazy and might get your entire family killed", but in a nice way?  
"Maybe you need to talk to him...I'm not an expert on that stuff, but it would probably help." 

"You're probably right. I just can't bring myself to do it. He sees them as Shaun, and Mom, and our neighbors... not Walkers." I kinda liked that name. "Walkers" it makes them seem equal to elderly people, which was funny to me for some reason. I need to get ahold of my humor.

There was another long silence, followed by a few disrupts of pill bottles shaking up and down to be examined by the two of us. 

It almost seemed like time had stopped abruptly when my arm wasn't moving from its spot. A flesh-ridden hand was wrapped around my wrist, but when I tried to pull my hand back, the fiend just held on tighter to me. I started flailing around like a fish out of water, trying to grab the crowbar from the ground where I had dropped it moments before. 

The Dead Weight was holding on tightly to me now, pulling my arm up towards its mouth to take a bite out of my flesh that I ever-so-wanted to keep for myself, and only for myself. The only problem was, the monster wanted me to share. 

"M-Maggie!" I screamed, dropping the pill bottle I had in my grasp onto the ground. I started to scream, kicking at the legs of the Dead Weight in front of me, hoping it'd go down and loose it's grasp on me. I had my hopes up too high when I tried kicking it, but stepped on the bottle I had recently dropped instead.

I toppled to the ground, the bloody hand still holding onto my jacket as I fell hard. Maggie fumbled for her gun, but finally checked back on the ground for anything she could use at that very moment. 

The Walker's teeth were closing in on my nose, just a few inches from biting it clean off, when Maggie finally found the crowbar I had brought and aimed it above the horrid thing. In a temporary adrenaline rush, my arms seemed to be stronger than before as I continued to push the monster off of me.

"Watch out!" Maggie placed her knee on top of the Walker's chest, bashing the crowbar on top of its head. Blood started to gush out of its eyes, landing on both her and I, leaving stains on our clothing as she kept smashing. 

Maggie dropped the crowbar onto the ground, black, oozy blood still dripping off of the ends. She looked back to me, breathing deeply as if she were having a panic attack. 

"Are... are you okay?" She said between breaths. I still couldn't get ahold of my own breathing pattern, but nodded my head in response to her question. 

How could I have been so stupid as to not look everywhere before even taking one fucking step into this store? What if that had been Maggie, what would I tell everyone else?

"Let's just get the hell out of here..." 

Maggie agreed, standing up and offering her hand down to me. I gradually took it into my own, pulling myself off of the floor where I had fallen earlier. That was a very... exhilarating adventure that I would love to never take again. 

I snatched up my backpack and the crowbar Freya had given me before making my way out of the store behind Maggie. 

<><><><>

"Did you get the pain killers?" Rick asked as Maggie and I stepped into the house. She nodded, digging into her satchel that rested on her left hip to search for the plastic bottle. She quickly handed them to Rick with a slight nod before turning back to me. 

"Are you two okay?"

"Peachy." I lied, giving Rick a thumbs up that could even fool Oprah. Although I could only hope, which is the best I was able to do at the moment.

"Lillian, why don't I wash your jacket?" Maggie offered, scrunching her nose up as she looked down at my dirty hoodie. I pulled at the fabric around my stomach, finally giving in, realizing it was probably time to give this filthy thing a good washing.  
"It's the least I could do." 

I carefully peeled off the sleeves to escape from my arms and pulled the item over my head, shaking my hair back in to place before handing it over to her. There was still blood on it from our previous encounter with the dead.

Maggie walked away down the hall, leaving me alone in the lounging area after Rick disappeared into another room. I wasn't sure what he was doing, so I decided to make myself useful by walking outside to find more chores.

I quickly picked up my pace, sprinting towards a blue truck that had a few men gathered around it, talking to one another about something. I decided to be nosey and look for myself. 

"Hey, Andrea." I smiled, stopping in front of her. She gave me a small, confused look, but smiled anyway.

"Yeah... hi." 

"Is there anything you guys need me to help you with?" 

"Not really. Maybe you could go help Dale with watching the area, eh?" Shane butted in, jerking his head towards the large RV parked a few meters away from where we all stood. I only noticed one other person who stood at the truck.

I think his name was Tee? Tee something, I can't exactly remember what Daryl had said whilst pointing everyone out to me. It was best not to ask. 

"Oh... right. Yeah, okay." I tried to keep the smile on my face, but turned around just in time when it faded from me. I heard Andrea start to curse at Shane for how rude he was being as I walked off towards the RV.

It didn't take long for the smile to return to my face as I met Dale and Glenn, once again. They had been so nice to me the entire time I've been here, which wasn't long, but it was still true. 

"You must be Lillian!" Dale started to walk down the RV's ladder, just to introduce himself. I remembered his name for an odd reason; just because of the fishing hat he wore at all times. Daryl said he's never without it. Speaking of him, where's that Redneck gone off to?

"That's me... you're Dale?" I already knew the answer, but I didn't want to come off creepy or anything. 

"Yep. This is Glenn - you met yesterday, though." 

"Yeah. Hello, again." I waved at the man behind Dale. He was working on the RV again; Daryl said it wasn't running for some reason unknown to them. I don't specialize in cars, so I honestly would have no idea what was the matter with it, either.

Glenn waved slightly at me, shrugging off my presence to continue working on the engine. I watched quietly, until Dale spoke up to end the silence between the three of us.

"Have you met everyone? How are you liking the camp?" He threw questions at me one after the other, smiling generously as he stopped for my answers. I stuttered, thinking of things to say.

"Not yet; a few people steer clear of me on purpose. The camp is great. There's quite a lot of people here, too." 

"If I were you I wouldn't get on Shane's bad side. Between you and me, he seems a bit... unsteady in the head." Dale lowered his voice down to where I could almost hear him. I nodded my head to the side, turning around to look at the small group huddled around the blue truck.

Shane and I met eyes for a split second before he looked away at the map again, trying to avoid my stare. Dale chuckled a bit, placing his freezing hand on my right shoulder. 

"You'll fit in just fine. He seems awfully afraid of looking at you at all, so that's a good thing." 

"I don't want any of you to be afraid of me. I want to get to know you all! You seem like nice people!" I protested, scanning the area quickly for anyone who reacted to my outburst by looking at me, clearly annoyed by my voice.

I wanted to try as best as I could to familiarize myself and put faces to the names I've heard from Daryl and Dale. They've been trying to help me, but without speaking directly to someone, it doesn't work as well. And knowing me, I was a scared introvert who didn't like human contact at all, so I hid myself from everyone. 

But now I was ready to meet the people who stayed on this land, even if they didn't want a thing to do with me. Like Shane. So far, Dale said there's quite a lot more people here than I know of, or even seen, but he wants to help me socialize more. I accepted, but didn't really expect him to say this:

"Then why don't you join us tonight instead of out there by yourself? I'm sure they wouldn't mind." He offered, turning his gaze at Rick, who was sitting on the front porch beside another women. 

Glenn sighed, shaking his head with a small grin on his face.

"Can you hand me the tool box from the RV? It's probably on the table." Glenn asked, pointing toward the motor home where I stood beside.

"Sure." I nodded, even though Glenn wasn't looking directly at me. I casually stepped inside of the cramped motor home, searching the area for what looked like a toolbox. The one I saw that Rick was carrying around yesterday was yellow, so that could possibly be the same box.

I had never been inside of an RV, before now. Crazy, right? But I never went camping, but when I did we used tents instead of a home on wheels. It was pretty convenient, though. It was an entire house built into a small box, but it still had room for a shower system and three -- maybe four -- beds.

I finally spotted the tool box Glenn had asked me to retrieve on the bed at the very back of the RV. When I walked in here, I felt very cautious when I stepped considering everything felt rickety and wobbly, as if it were ready to topple at any time. 

"Did you need a specific tool?" I asked Glenn as I stepped onto the ground, clutching the handle of the toolbox with all the muscle I had so I didn't drop it on my toes. It was quite heavy, but a box filled with multiple metal objects would be.

"Nah. Thank you, though." He smiled, sitting up to investigate what was inside of the box. He pulled out a wrench, ducking back behind the engine to fix whatever seemed to be broken.

"Does this thing break down a lot?" 

"Yeah. It's happened twice this week." Glenn sighed, fixing the ball cap on his head where he wanted it. I nodded, sitting down on the steps that led into the vehicle. 

Maybe it was time for them to just get a new RV? I wasn't going to say that out loud, of course, but no one can invade my thoughts so there's a perfect place to store that idea for now. 

I just hope this RV doesn't break down when they try to escape from here if something bad were to happen.

"I'm sorry about the whole 'soda' thing yesterday. I get nervous when around people and then I start to blab off. That was the first thing I could think of..." I rubbed the back of my neck anxiously, staring at the ground beneath me. Glenn laughed, grabbing another tool from the endless box.

"Don't worry about it. It was a great first impression. Keep that up and you'll win over every person here." 

I couldn't tell if Glenn was being sarcastic, or if he was actually right. (I was bad and detecting things like that, too). Hopefully I can still make stupid jokes and laugh while I'm here without being yelled and like my brother used to do. 

Is it bad I'm sort of glad he left?  
Am I a bad sister?


	10. Doomed

I didn't expect Glenn to fix up the RV so fast, with little to no help from me. All I did was hold things into place as he replaced other stuff at the same time. It wouldn't surprise me if he was a mechanic before the outbreak; he fixed it up pretty nicely with using minimal duct tape in the process. I was slightly impressed.

"That should do it. Hopefully it'll work." Glenn stood up, fixing the ball cap on top of his head and looking to me. 

"You have grease on your cheek." I pointed out casually, setting the tool box down on the grass in front of my feet. Glenn reached into the RV, grabbing a red washcloth to wipe it away.

"Thanks for helping." 

"Mhm. I didn't do much, but." I shrugged my shoulders stiffly, then looked towards the woman who was walking towards us. Carol was holding a basket, the same basket Glenn had yesterday, which had all sorts of things placed inside. I wasn't really paying attention to it at the moment, though.

"Lori and I are going to pitch in to make dinner for Hershel and his family. If you're not busy, would you mind helping us, Lillian?" She asked me, setting the basket on an ice chest beside the burned out campfire. I thought for a minute, deciding that Glenn and I were finished here, which left me with nothing left to do.

"Um... sure? Is it okay with him?" I instantly straightened my posture, resting the knife that was in my hand inside of the holster in my leather belt. The tattered thing was falling apart; I needed a new one, but the end of the world isn't the best time to go belt shopping.

"Lori asked, it is. Could you meet us in the kitchen in about five minutes?" Carol smiled happily at me, inferring I had said "yes" to the chore. I nodded my head as she walked away, back towards the house. 

"Um. Alright, so I have to cook. Bye, Glenn?" I mumbled, wiping the leftover oil stains that were on the palms of my hands on to my jeans, kind of regretting it now. It was so hard to get those stains out of clothing, especially denim.

What am I saying? I have food to cook.

"Hey, Shane? Is Daryl still out looking for-"

"Sophia? Yep. Who knows when he'll be back." He simply waved away my question, staring down at a map with red ink drawn everywhere. It looked like a wreck. 

"Wow, thanks so much." I replied sarcastically, rolling my eyes in the process of speaking. Of course, he didn't see me, because he was too busy looking at ink paintings.

I could've swore on my life I heard him mumble a quiet "I'm sorry." But, then again, I could just be hearing things.

"Hey, Lillian." Rick walked passed me, joining Shane as they went over different paths to find where this little girl had wandered off to. I looked at him, unsure of whether to walk away or ask what they were up to. 

"Do you know how to shoot?" Shane suddenly looked at me, ignoring Rick as he took up the map into his own hands. I nodded, waving my hand from side to side. 

"Yes, and no. I can, but I try not to. It's better to kill silently." 

"I'm doing this training thing tomorrow around noon. You should- uh, can join us if you like." Wait, was Shane trying to be nice to me? All I had been getting for two days was death glares and awkward eye contact, and now he wants to help me learn to shoot things? 

"Sure. Sounds like loads of fun." I gave him a thumbs up, turning around to meet my deadline in the kitchen with Carol as she had asked me to. Shane mumbled something, letting his eyes trail after me. 

I didn't take long to walk from the RV towards the house as I had thought it would be. Seemingly, the walk looked a bit far for my liking, but I was inside of the picture-filled hallway within a minute.

"What do you need me to do?" I asked Carol, looking around the kitchen at the women who were cooking and washing dishes. Oh, god; this had "stereotype" written all over it. 

Andrea wasn't in here, which didn't surprise me one bit. She didn't seem like the type of person who would add cooking and cleaning to her chore list, even if she had to. 

"Can you take over Lori's job to peel potatoes so she can help me with something else?" 

"Sure." I looked towards the, very tall, woman who had just started with that job. Lori, another face I could add to the book, smiled politely and handed me the knife she had been using before. 

This wasn't what, in my vocaculary, would be called "fun", but if it had to be done I was willing to do it just to help out the people here. It was the least that I could do, considering what these people had done for me.

So, I started to peel the vegetables, staring down at the potatoes miserably for some odd reason. I didn't like the way they were trying to make everything seem okay. It was like they didn't know that at any moment they could just... die.

My Edgar Allen Poe words wouldn't be soothing to anyone but myself, so I kept the thoughts I had in my head, daring to never let anyone know what I was thinking.

Maggie walked in all of a sudden, startling me as she raised her voice to talk over the others who were chit-chatting. She stood beside me with a smile on her face.

"I'm sorry about what happened at the drug store. Are you okay?" She asked, leaning against the cabinet to look at me. I nodded, not knowing what else to say after that. I just wanted her to talk to someone else and leave me to do whatever else I had that needed done.

"I left your jacket in the RV. I didn't know where else to put it. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, Maggie. Thank you for that, and I'll be fine. I wasn't bitten or scratched, that's all that matters." I gave her the smile she wanted to see, and looked out of the window in front of me. 

She nodded, patting my shoulder as she walked away to help Lori with something else. I had noticed there was another girl in here I had yet to introduce myself to. I believe that she's Maggie's younger sister, but I didn't quite catch her name when Carol was explaining. 

"Excuse me." She smiled wearily as she bumped into me, reaching beside me into a cabinet to collect spice jars. I waved her off as if it were nothing, a mere accident, and sighed. 

Then the people outside of the window started panicking, grabbing their weapons and walking off towards the meadow. That could only mean one thing, a Walker. I had never gone more than a day without killing one and it made me feel weird. 

It's like a habit that you kick, and it leaves something empty inside of your chest that only another thing can kill. I didn't enjoy it, if that's what you think I mean. No, It's just a weird experience; a nice one, too.

I set the last peeled potato inside of a pot and looked at Carol. "Anything else I can do?" I asked, half hoping she'd say "no"

"Not until the meat is finished cooking. Thanks for your help, Lillian." 

That was my cue to leave and find something else to do with my time for today until Carol called me back to finish up. So I started walking out of the house, letting the screen door slam backward against the frame. 

I looked towards the field at Rick, Glenn, T-something (I really need to learn his name), and Shane, who all were lingering around the Walker. They seemed to be debating whether or not to kill it.

Before I knew what I was doing, I quickened my pace and started running towards the RV, watching Andrea as she mounted the gun she held in her hands. Dale disagreed, telling her that it was covered. She simply shrugged him off.

"Wait, Andrea." I slapped the wall of the RV, hoping she'd hear me as I spoke quietly. Her gaze turned to me for a second; she rolled her eyes and continued to scope down the monster in the field in front of us.

Something was clearly wrong. There was a reason that they weren't able to kill the thing in front of them; it was just standing there. 

And then I decided to be stupid, and go check out what was happening, just to make myself useful to the group. Maybe it was a mistake.

"That's the third time you've pointed that thing at my head! You gonna pull the trigger?" I heard the Walker yell. Only it wasn't a Walker, it was Daryl. He was limping, with blood all over his chest and his mouth. The grey wife-beater he wore was soaked in sweat and dark blood splatters. I made my legs move faster until I was standing right in front of him, beside Glenn.

A shot rang out, and Daryl fell to the ground with a swift movement. I gasped loudly, looking back towards the RV where Andrea was celebrating shooting him in the head. Rick started to scream.  
"No! No, no!" He picked Daryl up with the help of Shane.

"I was kidding!" Daryl groaned, touching the place where the bullet hit the side of his head. I stared in awe at how close it had come to hitting his actual forehead. For once, it was a good thing that Andrea was a bad shot.

"Oh my god, Daryl. What the hell are you doing!?" I screamed, getting weird looks from Glenn and T-something. Rick and Shane were holding him up, rushing back towards the farm.

"Oh my god! Oh my god, is he dead?" Andrea yelled, running up to where we all stood, staring at Daryl as he was unconscious in their grasp. I was mad at her, but it wasn't her fault exactly. If only she had listened to Dale and not taken the shot.

"No, you just grazed him." Rick pushed passed her, walking along.

"But, look at him! What the hell happened? He's wearing ears!" Glenn seemed disgusted at the thought of dismembering a Roamer of its precious hearing utinsils. I, on the other hand, thought it was pretty funny to see them dangle around his neck. 

Rick laughed nervously, ripping the disembodied ears from around Daryl's neck, stuffing them into the pocket of his shirt. I could hear Lori and Hershel yelling at them from the house, wondering what was happening. I was kind of confused myself as to why I couldn't take the necklace as a gag joke.

"Hey guys... isn't this Sophia's?" T-something grabbed something off of the ground behind where Daryl had trudged along, showing it to all of us. Now I was really confused. 

Apparently that doll was a huge deal to Rick and the rest of his group. I guess it meant that they were getting closer to finding the little girl they all missed so much, but now wasn't exactly the best time to ask about it.


	11. Drag Me to My Grave

Hershel was stitching up all of Daryl's wounds as he and Rick were discussing the doll and where it was found. I was quite bored, but I wanted to ask Daryl about... well, everything. I haven't seen him all day, so now would be a good time to catch up on whatever was on his mind.

Rick took forever to leave after talking to Hershel. They were running out of antibiotics, which meant that someone, probably myself, would have to go on a run again, and soon. 

"I'm surprised you all survived this long." Hershel retorted, wiping his hands clean and walking out of the room in a haste. Daryl and I met eyes as Rick stood up from where he sat, folding up the map with ink scribbles all over it.

"He's all yours." Rick whispered, walking away finally. He closed the door lightly and his footsteps faded down the hallway. 

Daryl looked at me again, using his arm to prop his head up to where he was laying. I twisted the fabric of my shirt around in my fingers, looking up at him.

"How are you feeling?" 

"About as good as I look." He wiped his hand across the dirt that covered his arms and face. His gaze averted mine, and he looked at the wall in front of him.

"What uh, what happened to your side?" I asked, trying to make conversation with him in any form. I don't remember it ever being this awkward when I was around him yesterday. Maybe it was the fact that he was laying in a bed shirtless, staring at me? That had to be the reason.

"Landed on an arrow. Why do you care?" He was mad now, and for a reason I was clearly unaware of. I do remember him being moody and obnoxious in high school, though. 

"Don't be like that." Now I was angry. He would always be pissed for awful, stupid reasons that he could think of just to push people away from him when they were too close. It always made me want to strangle him. 

"I'm really trying, here, Daryl. Don't make it harder than it has to be." I hmph-ed at him, crossing my arms in denial of how he was acting as if it was my fault that Andrea shot him. He should be mad at her. 

"Hmm. Didn't say that when you left, did ya'?" 

"Oh my god, this again?" I stood up to leave, but then stopped to say another thing to Daryl before I went downstairs.  
"I just thought that if I got a college education, maybe I could reason with you to stop acting like your brother."

"I saw him, Lillian. When I was in the forest. He was a stupid fuckin' hallucination or somethin', but he was there. Mockin' me like he was real. Turned out to be a stupid Walker biting along on my shoe." 

"You saw Merle?" Wow I haven't said that name in quite some time. He was never my favorite Dixon, of course, but Daryl liked him for some reason. He was family, I guess, and family is supposed to stick together. Or I thought so, at least. 

The door beside me opened abruptly, ending our conversation before it even started. Carol smiled at the two of us, looking at the floor shyly. 

"Dinner's ready." She said, and walked away without another word to either of us. I looked to Daryl, holding the door open for myself to walk away.

"I'll bring you something." I mumbled, closing the door behind me softly. As I continued to walk down the hallway, I saw Carol looking through another door, talking to someone. I didn't want to disrupt them, so I quickly walked passed as if I was even there. I turned my head back towards the ground, bumping my arm against someone as they walked beside me.

"Sorry." He apologized quickly, looking up at me. I shrugged him off, placing my hand in the railing to the stairs.  
"You're Lillian, right?" 

"Yeah. I haven't seen you, I don't think." 

"Oh, I'm, I'm Jimmy. Beth's boyfriend... could you give this to Rick for me? I don't know where he is." Jimmy tossed a pill bottle at me, walking away into a different room. 

How many bedrooms are in this house? It's like the secret hotel that H.H Holmes built to kill people inside of the walls, and made trap doors to make them fall through. It was almost creepy. 

After a full minute of reading the bottle's label, I nodded my head, but realized he had already walked away somewhere else. The pills jingled inside of the plastic as I took small steps down the stairs, trying to listen in on the conversations that were flying around the room. 

"Where are you gonna sit?" 

"Hmm. Maggie, can you hand me that coaster?" 

I tuned them out, looking around the room for Rick so I could rid myself of this wind chime in my hands. He was nowhere to be found, so I looked around for the next best thing, Lori. 

She was helping to set the table along with Beth, Maggie, and Patricia. I made my way over to her, but a hand rested itself on my shoulder before I could walk into the kitchen. 

"You still comin' to gun practice tomorrow?" Shane asked again, his eyes averting my own to look at the pictures lacing the hallway walls. My eyebrows knitted together suspiciously. Didn't we discuss this already? Like, four hours ago; unless he has short term memory, I'm not sure why he's asking again. 

"Yes." 

Shane nodded, letting go of my shoulder to walk away. Something about that man made me want to stab his arm and run away without feeling bad about it. If I did, he might shoot me, so there was no way I would get away with that. The other half of me wanted to get to know him better, which wouldnever happen in this life time.

~*~

That night at dinner was probably the most awkward social event I have ever been to in my entire life. It was bad enough that I had only been there for three days, but then I was seated across the table from none other than Shane himself. 

The room was completely silent, until Glenn decided to pipe up by asking a question that made everyone sick to their stomach, especially Patricia.

"Does... anyone know how to play guitar? Dale found a cool one.." he trailed off, looking to Dale for support in the conversation. I couldn't help but snigger at his choice of question, but then coughed as if I did nothing. Shane rolled his eyes at me. I looked up at him, noticing that his mouth curved into a small smile.

I shrugged my shoulders, continuing to cut away at the meat on my plate. It had been quite act while since I had eaten chicken, but I guess there's plenty to go around considering they do live on a farm. 

"Otis did." Patricia croaked, her gaze staring ahead at the wine glass in her hands. I was confused at who she was talking about, but assumed the man was dead, considering she said "did". I'll have to ask Dale later; he seems like the kind of person you can tell your secrets to, and he won't get mad or offended. 

Hershel decided to chime in, to make Patricia feel better about this Otis man.  
"Yes, and he was very good, too." He nodded, looking at Rick as if it was his fault for the question.

I coughed again, trying not to let out a laugh at Glenn's poor attempt to get on Hershel's good side. It failed, but at least he tried to do something. Andrea shot me a look, begging me to stop laughing as Hershel was glaring at Glenn. 

It took a bit, but with a few sips of water and hiding my face from the glaring people, I managed to stop smiling and laughing to myself. I stared down at the food on my plate, and continued to cut it up again. 

<><><><>

"Daryl are you awake?" I knocked on the door after I helped Maggie and Patricia clean up after dinner. Last time I did that, it was a long time ago, and it was for a dinner party my parents threw for their co-workers. It was fun, but I only remember my brother coming home drunk and barfing on Cindy, but you know.

"Mhm." He pulled the covers over his stitches, looking over at me. The tray of food I had caught his attention and he gave me a small smile, watching as I set it down on the table beside him. 

I crossed the room, seating myself in a plush chair in front of the bed he was in. Daryl ignored the tray and looked back to me, poking at his stitches. I inhaled sharply, rubbing my temple with slight aggression. 

"You saw Merle." I reminded him, trying to make him talk to me again. Daryl nodded, laying back on the headboard to face me completely. "Mind telling me what he was doing?" 

"Mockin' me again. Like he always does. Being a jackass, mouthing off about Sophia." 

"It's okay. It wasn't real, don't worry about it, Daryl. When's the last time you saw him, anyway?" He hadn't talked to me about Merle before today, but even then I wouldn't have asked him, considering I absolutely hated that man. 

"Back in Atlanta. He was talkin' shit again, and Rick handcuffed him to a roof-"

"Wait, wait. Merle Dixon? Rick handcuffed him?" I was shocked, completely. In all the years I've known that man, everyone was too afraid to even talk to him, but Rick fucking handcuffed him to a roof! I guess that's karma for you, huh? 

"Yeah, I know. Big and bad; talking about people behind their backs. That Merle Dixon." Daryl couldn't help but smile, reminiscing about the moment of truth when Merle was on his bad side; which was almost every day of his life. 

I was really considering on thanking Rick for that, but I'm not sure Daryl would want me to do that. Honestly, I thought it was the most hilarious thing that's happened, besides Glenn tonight, but it wasn't nice to make fun of someone like that.

"He cut his hand off, Lillian." 

Now it definitely wasn't okay to make fun of Merle. And on the darker side, why in the hell would he even consider chopping off his hand? Just to get out of handcuffs? 

"Wow." Is all that I could stand to say without going on a whole ranting rampage about how he probably deserved it from what Daryl was saying about him. I didn't say anything else. Daryl and I just sat in silence, staring at the ground until I finally decided to leave him alone to eat. 

"You did a good thing for that little girl." I smiled at him, leaning down towards his forehead, planting a small kiss on his left temple, right beside where his stitches were. He winced, but smiled anyway.

"Rick and Shane would've done the same thing, ain't no reason to praise me." He retorted, laying back down. I nodded, basically saying he was right because, let's face it, there was no way to win an fight with Daryl. 

I closed the door behind me, smiling to myself as I walked away down the hall, trying to make my steps lighter as I walked beside rooms with sleeping people. One small creak and they could wake up. 

I don't think I've ever been that close to Daryl without him threatening to punch me if I didn't get away from him in time. He was bluffing the whole time; I did kiss him once in high school, after I graduated. It was a good day.


	12. If It Means A Lot To You

Carl, whom I learned had gotten shot by Otis days before I came here, was on his feet again this morning. He was already walking around, helping Lori and Patricia feed the chickens and help around the farm. He seemed very energetic for a child who was just shot in the chest.   
That's why Rick needed all of those pain medications that he kept sending Maggie and I to town for. 

When I had woken up, Shane, Rick, and Lori were arguing about gun safety around Carl. I decided to walk around them to the RV in order to retrieve my jacket without disrupting their bickering. From what I gathered, Shane wanted to teach Carl how to shoot, whereas Lori disagreed.

I ran into Glenn on my way out, trying to put my jacket on over my head. It was a difficult task to do while walking, which may have been a mistake, now that I think about it. He seemed anxious and jittery about something he was keeping to himself.

"What's wrong, Glenn?" I asked the nervous man, pulling down the sleeves of my jacket to my hands. He hesitated before taking a step closer towards me, thinking about the next words he was going to say.

"You know things, right?" He kept shifting his weight back and forth, looking around nervously. I nodded slightly, shrugging again.

"Yeah, I guess so." 

"Can you keep a secret?" Glenn finally looked straight at me. Now, if this was some sort of test, I was going to fail. How am I supposed to know who to keep the secret from, and I can't ask what it is because if I know then I might blab, right? And what if it puts the group in danger? 

"I'm not sure... maybe you should just tell Dale? Is it personal because I'm not goo-"

"Lillian." Glenn said sternly. Oh, so he was looking for a straight answer, then. My bad.

"Fine, yeah. I can. But I still think you should tell Dale and not me." 

"Maybe you're right. Thanks anyway." He slumped off. Now I was curious as to what the secret was, and I decided that maybe I should go after him and ask myself? 

"No, no. Wait. What is it? Can't you tell both of us? I can keep it secret." I smiled, taking my hand off of his arm where I stopped him from walking away to find Dale. Glenn sighed, lacing his fingers together a few times before looking up at me again.

"There's, there's Walkers in the barn... and Lori's pregnant. You can't tell anyone, I have to go find Dale and ask for advice." 

I was slightly offended that he thought I gave bad advice, but then I realized he had never asked me for advice before. And why in the hell did he decide that I was the first one he should tell? I've only been here for like, four days now; am I approachable or something?

What was I supposed to do with this new information? My eyes were trained on Lori as she and her husband were talking to one another about Carl shooting things. She didn't look pregnant, but she probably wasn't that far along yet. 

And the barn. I hadn't really noticed it before, considering it's all the way on the other side of the farm, but I never had a reason to even glance at it before now. What was I to do with any of this? 

"Lilian, are you comin' or what?" Shane's loud voice snapped me out of my trance of staring at the barn. Apparently a few minutes had gone by since Glenn had told me, but I was lost in my thoughts. Lori agreed to let Carl go as long as she was right there beside him the whole time, and Glenn was trying to find Dale to tell him the "news".

"Yeah..." I looked over to him, making my feet walk forward in order to meet everyone beside the cars. I didn't want to look anyone in the eyes, so I kept my gaze on the ground, watching the bugs scamper away as my foot came in contact with the grass blades. 

Shane seemed suspicious of me, so I looked up and gave him a thumbs up from me, trying to focus on the fact that I don't have a gun. Cole stole mine. 

"I'll hand them out when we get there." Rick patted my shoulder, opening the passenger door of the truck and stepping inside of it. I nodded my thanks, turning back to Shane.

"Why don't you hop in the back with T-Dog so we can get a move on?" There we go! Thank you, Shane. T-Dog. I have to imprint that into my brain so I don't keep calling him "T-something" because that's just awful, and it was really bad.

"Okay." I stepped up onto the tire, hoisting myself over the side and toppling into the truck's bed. T-Dog stifled a laugh, resting the machete in his hands beside his body.

"I haven't gotten a chance to talk to you, yet." I fixed my legs so they weren't twisted around eachother, and looked back to him. T-Dog nodded his head, watching me as I struggled to get situated on the uncomfortable metal under my butt. 

"You look like you're having some trouble." He laughed, offering me a hand. I gratefully take it, pulling myself upward so I'm sitting on my knees instead of my rear, and give him a thankful smile.

"I'm not a hitchhiker, so I don't usually ride in the back of trucks." I admitted, realizing what I just said was really stupid. "I'm sorry. I don't make good first impressions." 

"Eh. You're doing a pretty good job. It's nice to know that someone can still joke around in this time." T-Dog held out his fist towards me. A grin flew across my face. 

"Wow, so I'm cool enough to get a fist bump?" I was ecstatic. He seemed so nice, and here I was, calling him the wrong name because I didn't want to ask for his real one. I'm such a bitch.

"Yeah, man. You seem pretty cool." T-Dog smiled at me, clashing our fists together. 

"Well, thanks I guess? Can I ask you something?" 

"What's on your mind?" 

"Does Daryl seem a bit... hostile to you?" I knew it was a long shot, but I had to ask just to know his opinion. He seems quite different than yesterday. T-Dog laughed out loud, wiping away an imaginary tear from his eye. 

"Daryl Dixon? Man, he eats hostile for breakfast. Why do you ask?" He finally said in between laughs. I shrugged my shoulders.

"He seems different than when I last saw him..." 

"I wouldn't worry about it. This whole thing has everyone on edge. I mean, he did almost die yesterday." That wasn't making me feel any better. In fact, it made my head hurt just thinking about Daryl dying.

<><><><>

"Keep your eye on the target!" Shane yelled over the random acts of gunfire. I was holding the gun up in front of me, taking deep breaths everytime I shot. Shane laughed as I missed, and patted my back.

"Don't be discouraged. You'll hit it eventually." He would say after I shot. But, I wasn't discouraged; I knew where I was shooting, but he didn't seem to.

"I did hit it." I pointed towards a fence, looking to Rick as he held up the binoculars. A smiley face was shot into the wooden fence, claiming my crown of shooting wizard. Rick laughed, exchanging glances with Shane.

"I think she's ready for the advance courses, huh?" 

I never thought I would be that good, but it seemed ironic to implant a smile permanently on the wood. It was funny, to me at least. T-Dog clapped his hands, giving me a short thumbs up before turning back to Jimmy to help him with his aim.

"Try this gun. It might be better for your balance." Shane stole the one I had in my hands, giving another to me. I shrugged. How bad could this one be?

"It might be worth your while after the rest of us go back to camp?" Rick suggested, looking back to Shane for guidance. I nodded my head slightly, taking another look at the tin can placed perfectly on top of the fence line. 

I took a deep breath, and aimed the gun directly at the silver object. I rested my index finger on the trigger, pulling it back. 

"I like this one." I turned the safety on after I was finished shooting, handing it to Shane again. He shrugged his shoulders loosely 

"Why don't you keep it? You ain't got a gun, anyway." 

"Thanks." I smiled. I don't like Shane, but he did just give me a gun, so I had to be nice in someway or else he might take it away from me. We couldn't have that, could we? 

"Alright, everyone. We should probably wrap up for today. We can continue later this week." Rick started loading all of the guns back into a bag. Shane jerked his head towards the green car, motioning for me to follow him. 

Maybe this was a bad idea. He might be luring me into the woods just so he could like, snap my neck or something. Just as long as he shoots me afterward so I don't turn into one of those things; that's my biggest nightmare. 

"Can you hit moving targets?"

"Um... I haven't really tried I guess." 

"How're you gonna hit Walkers?" Shane snorted, shaking his head as we passed the green car, walking further into the woods. He seemed to be looking for something around the forest bed. I watched him sneak around silently, and then he finally picked up a hollow log, looking over to me.

"This should be good." He mumbled to himself. 

~*~

In about ten minutes, he had the log tied to a tree branch, swinging it back and forth for target practice for me. I was kinda angry at the fact that I couldn't hit it, so I took two randomized shots, looking back to Shane. 

"Nope. Didn't hit it." He laughed, pulling it backwards to make it swing again. I groaned, rolling my eyes at him.

"It's... the target is too small." I protested, trying to come up with an excuse.

"That's crap, you know it. Thirty minutes ago I watched you hit a smile into the damn fence from 25 feet!" He stopped the log from swaying once more, glaring back at me. He was angry, which didn't surprise me. This dude had issues.

"It's wasn't moving like that, huh!?" I was getting mad at him, too. How dare he say I suck at shooting when he clearly saw me hit that target last time.

"You think a Walker is gonna hold still for ya'?" 

"Well it isn't gonna zig-zag all over the place, now is it?" I stuck my tongue out at him before aiming down the log again. 

"Come on, Lillian! It's ten feet away from you. Shoot it!" 

I shrugged him off, taking a deep breath, trying with my luck to shoot it so he'll stop badgering me about this and we can leave. I took a shot, missing and hitting the tree behind where the log was supposed to be. Shane started yelling again.

"It's nine feet! Five feet - it's about the be eatin' you for lunch!" 

I took another shot, missing again. Shane continued yelling, making me even more mad than I was before.

"Why don't you shoot the damn thing then!" I spoke too soon, watching as Shane pulled out the gun from his belt and turned to look at the log that was still swaying from side to side. In a second, he took a shot, hitting the log directly in the middle, shattering the left side of the wood. 

"I can be pissed off and still hit the target."

I glared at him, turning to look at the object moving back and forth and drew my gun again, pulling the trigger.

The bullet hit the log, barely, and lodged itself in the side of the wooden structure. I couldn't bring myself to look back at Shane after he yelled at me.  
Although I could see in my peripheral vision that he was smirking at me. I rolled my eyes, trudging off to the treeline, and back towards the highway again. 

I started walking, not really sure if I was going the right way or not, back to the farm. I could hear the car's engine nearing from behind me. I tucked the gun into my tattered belt and continued to stroll down the road. 

"Lillian. Come on, get back in the car." Shane was driving slowly beside me. I shook my head. I was acting petty, I know, but I hate him and I just wanted to leave and go back to the farm, and talk to Daryl because he's the only person who could stand to be around me.

"No. Stranger danger, leave me alone." I flicked my wrist, trying to send him away from me. Apparently Shane didn't take "no" for an answer, because he sped the car up, swerving in front of me and stopping abruptly. 

I groaned, sending him a hateful look before crossing my arms.   
"I'm... sorry that I yelled. I just needed to get you rattled so you could shoot... look, just get in so we can go back."

"No. I don't like you, and my legs work."   
I couldn't help but roll my eyes again at the pathetic amount of energy he put into the apology. Shane seemed to be annoyed with me, but that wasn't surprising. He had enough anger issues to fill up a 620oz soda cup; if they even make those.

"Why are you so goddamn stubborn!? How 'bout this, I have a lead on where Sophia is, can you help me check it out? Be my backup?"

Now this sounded like fun. I wanted to help search for Sophia, I haven't gotten the chance to go with anyone, but I hate Shane. Do you see my problem here? 

"Fine," I finally gave in, turning back towards the green car, "for Sophia."

"Mhm, sure." He muttered, stepping back inside of the car. I slammed the door behind me, crossing my arms over one another before looking over to him.

"How'd you get so good at shooting, anyway?" 

"I used to be a police officer." 

This surprised me. I didn't take him to be a person that was for the law, and not against it. If anything, he looking like someone who killed people for money. A hitman, I suppose. 

"How was that?" I didn't really care much, but it would have been really awkward for us to drive in silence. I was done with those situations for today, and I just wanted to have a nice, kind of civil, conversation. Even if it was with Shane.

"It had its payoff. Rick and I were partners, and then he got shot," now that made sense. Rick, who was born to be a leader, was a police officer before the outbreak. I could see that; dressed up in his uniform, gun strappedto his hip. 

"That's why you guys are like, best friends? Kind of."

"What do you mean 'kind of'?" He seemed to be defending something that I wasn't attacking, which made me furrow my eyebrows; that was really weird of him to pick up on it that fast.

"I just - I mean you guys seem to be - well...." I chose my next words very carefully. Saying literally anything to this man would make him explode unless it was "have a gun!" or "oh yeah, kill it" because that's what it looked like in my vision.

"You seem to be mad at each other now." I tried to choose my words gently, hoping he didn't seem too mad at my remark. Shane nodded, to my surprise, and sighed deeply.

"Some things happened since we were partners. It's a long story..." he shrugged his shoulders, giving no interest of wanting to tell the story. I nodded, looking back to the road ahead of us for a moment before looking to him again.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure." He blankly replied to me, keeping his eyes on the road.

"When I first got to the camp, you didn't seem to like me very much. Can I ask why?"

He slowed the car down a little bit, almost as if he was trying to think without crashing the car into a tree. I waited for him to say something, my heart racing at his answer. I know there was no point to have anxiety right now, but I couldn't help it.

"I needed to know we could trust you. Rick let's anyone into the group, as long as they answer his stupid fucking questions accordingly. He doesn't realize people are also threats now, not just walkers." I like the new polite Shane. He was the person I could definitely become friends with.

I nodded at his response. That seems to be the only thing I could do now. I didn't know how else to reply to him.

"Can you trust me?" I asked, desperate for his answer. He shrugged.

"I guess we'll find out."


	13. Helping Hand

Shane and I had been driving for at least twenty minutes now, talking about what we had done before the apocalypse. He led a somewhat interesting life. More affixiating than mine, to say the least.

He told me all about the people he put in prison, and the outrageous things they did to be caught there.

"This guy had a bag of guns just sitting in the trunk of his car. Apparently the bullets got too hot or somethin' and they fired and went off in the parking lot of a Dairy Queen. Man, I've never seen anything like it!" He grinned from ear to ear.

"Holy shit." I laughed; something I hadn't done in a long time. He nodded, shrugging his shoulders.

"What about you? Got any stories?" He asked. I smiled, trying to think of a few.

"When I was in nursing school, this convict came in because he was having constipation - it gets better I swear - and apparently he had been a drug mule for this big cartel. So we did x-rays and shit, then it turns out he had ten bags of cocaine shoved up in there."

Shane let out a big laugh, covering his mouth in disgust.  
"We had a few guys like that in the sheriff's office, but never with ten of 'em." 

It felt nice to laugh, especially with someone who I thought hated my guts just hours before. 

We suddenly stopped in front of a large house, painted pale blue with grass growing it's way up towards the windows. Shane looked slightly my way, and smiled softly.

"Ready to go? You still got your gun?" He asked, loading his own with bullets. I nodded, reaching into the backseat for my firearm.

We stepped out of the vehicle and searched the treeline for anything that seemed suspicious. Shane nodded at me, and we began to walk toward the house.

I relaxed a bit when we stepped onto the porch, checking inside of the dusty windows for anything. He knocked his gun against the wall and waited for a minute, looking over to me.

"Guess we're good? Doesn't sound like anyone is in there." He said. I shrugged and opened the front door, holding my pistol up in front of me in case anything jumped out randomly. 

We searched for about five minutes, whispering Sophia's name simultaneously as we walked through the house. It was a complete mess.

The laundry room had dead rats, the kitchen didn't seem to have any food, and the living room was burned where the fire place was.

"Looks like someone left in a hurry. Didn't even have time to stomp out the fire. Coulda set the whole house blazing." Shane scoffed. He tucked his gun into his belt and sat down in a sofa-chair.

"Well, when the news says to evacuate, people tend to take it seriously." I shrugged and sat down in a metal fold-out chair across from Shane. He looked over at me and scratched the scruff on his face.

"Look, can I just say sorry?" 

"For what?" I raised my eyebrow, staring at him until he answered.

Shane stared at me. "I've treated you like shit, but you seemed to have proven yourself, y'know? Sorry, for that. You just don't know who you can trust anymore."

I nodded and let his words soak into my brain before responding with a smile. I shrugged it off.

"I get it. People are strange, and there's no telling what they could do. I don't hold it against you."

To be honest, I was quite surprised by his apologizing. I never took Shane to be the person who would ever admit he was in the wrong, and to hear it from him, personally, made me wonder what brought it up.

"Thank you. I'm just... trying to keep everyone safe." Shane sat back in the chair and took a deep breath, looking over to the fireplace.

"We should head back soon. I promised Daryl I'd help him out a bit when we got back from practice." I lied, but only to get out of that awkward situation we were in. The room was silent, which tipped me off a bit.

"Yeah," Shane nodded, wiping away the sweat from his forehead before he stood up.  
"Can I ask you something else?" He suddenly stopped to look down at me.

I gave in. "Sure."

"Do you think this girl, Sophia, is alive?" He seemed to regret asking, but urged me to answer with a solemn look.

I was shocked, again, completely, that he even said something like that. I didn't even know how to reply, so I just shrugged my shoulders and decided on words.

"It's not my place to say yes or no. I didn't know her at all. I just know she's missing. Why?"

Shane sighed deeply and scratched his head, staring at me for a few seconds.  
"It's been a while since she disappeared. I just... I'm starting to lose hope. Carol isn't taking it too well, and I'm having doubts." He admitted to me.

"I hope she's alive, or else Daryl would be out looking for nothing. Risking his life." 

"You and Daryl; you two are somethin' else." He laughed at it, picking up his pistol as we began to exit the house. 

"What do you mean?" I asked, staring off into the forest beside us. Shane dismissed his first thought and smiled.

"He hasn't stood by anyone in camp like he has to you. I get you're friends, but wow."

I shook my head, almost bursting into laughter.  
"We went to high school together, is all. He barely tolerates me now. It pisses me off that he gets mad over nothing, but what can I do?"

"You're not... like, together?" Shane raised an eyebrow.  
"I could've sworn..." He shrugged, trailing off.

"I can assure you, we're not."

"You guys hold hands an awful lot. Sorry for assuming." He started the car and in a second we were backing up down the road again.

"I kinda have anxiety... a lot. Your group doesn't help it, either." I muttered, putting the pistol in my hands down on the dashboard. 

"We're working things out." He looked over to me and smirked.  
"I gotta say, I lose my temper with Rick a lot. He thinks he knows what's best for the group, but I say otherwise. Just doesn't compare, y'know?"

"You two are always at each other's throats. Why is that?" I asked, turning my attention away from him and to the window. He laughed at my question.

"This world fucks you up. Makes you crazy. We just don't see eye-to-eye anymore."

We started off toward the farm again, and I began to think about what he had said about Daryl. I held onto his hand because I panic a lot, and I started to wonder if he knew that.

I wouldn't know, I had never asked him, but it's a possible conversation starter for awkward silences. To, you know, make things even more awkward.

"Did you have a family before?" I asked Shane, trying to lighten the mood. He shook his head.

"Not really. I had a few girlfriends here and there, but nothing special. You?"

"My brother and parents. Fucking asshole brother left me for dead a few weeks ago, though. Haven't seen him since."

"Sorry." Shane grimaced, looking to me and away from the road.

"No need. He's probably dead now, who knows."

Half of me wanted him to be dead. To be Walker bait now, but the other fifty percent hoped he was okay. I didn't know what to think now, considering he was my brother. Key word: was.

"You two weren't close?" Shane asked, swerving to avoid potholes and dead bodies every now and then.

"We used to be, until this happened. He was controlling, and we disagreed on a lot of things."

"Sounds familiar." He muttered, earning a smile from me.

Now that I think about it, Shane didn't seem to be such a bad guy. Of course, it's be hard to get around that shell of his, but I could see us becoming friends.

Eventually.

"Hopefully I can earn your trust soon. I just... I'm sorry for being a bitch all the time."

Shane smiled at me, shaking his head at my remark.

"I get it. I don't blame you, honestly. I can be a real dick sometimes and I know that. So, I'm sorry."

There was another silence, but this time it was more comfortable than the others. I leaned back in the passenger seat, watching the road ahead of us.

I'm glad we sorted things out. Maybe now I won't hate Shane.

"So it was just you? On your own?" Shane looked toward me. I shrugged.

"Pretty much. I was always at work, never had time for anything else." We met eyes for a moment before I continued to talk.  
"Being a nurse is... tiring. You know? Late shifts, long hours, double overtime. Real shit storm that was."

"Didn't that get lonely?"

"Well, yeah. Of course, but I was always too busy to think about it."

"That's pretty rough."

"Pfft, you're tellin' me." I agreed, turning my head away from him.

This trip turned out a lot better than I predicted. I was just glad we didn't fight the whole time, either. It was nice to relaxand enjoy the company of someone for a change.

~*~ 

When we arrived at the camp, Shane and I had to tell Carol we didn't find anything. I hated to see her sad; she lost her daughter, for Christ sake. She was lonely and depressed now, which I could understand.

I asked around camp, wondering if anyone needed help with chores. Of course, they shot me down, so I decided to just take a short walk around the farm to see the sights.

It dawned on me that Shane was walking my way, asking for help to reload some guns. I said yes, considering I was bored out of my mind just doing nothing.

"The boxes are labeled, so don't confuse them." He smirked, watching as I put bullets in the magazine, one after the other.

"Yes, sir." I scrunched my nose up, concentrating on my task.

"That's cute." Shane mumbled, continuing to load the shotgun in his hand. I acted as if I didn't hear him, but smiled anyway.

Our seats were only inches away as he looked up at me, a small smile on his face.

"Can I talk to you about something?" We met eyes for a second, then I finally nodded. When someone asked me that, my anxiety used to shoot straight through the roof; but, now I was completely calm. Progress was being made!

"I'm glad we got the chance to talk, back at the house, and the ride over. Y'know, I get we still won't agree on everything, but I'm just saying that... well, I hope you don't hate my guts."

I was smiling. I never figured Shane would ask how I felt about him, or even care. I didn't hate him; actually, he was getting on my good side lately.

"I don't hate you," I picked up a handful of bullets from the box beside my feet and shook my head.  
"There are some things you do that piss me off, but you don't live to please me."

Shane nodded, leaning back in his chair with a small smile on his face as I scoffed.

"Are we all buddy-buddy now?" He looked up and asked me, trying not to be too straightforward.

"We're gettin' there."

"Least we're not fightin' all the time. That's a good start, right?" He poked fun at me, causing my face to break out a big grin.

I was blushing. Why was I blushing!?

"Yeah," I nodded. "It's a great start."


	14. Walking With The Dead

Daryl was finally back on his feet after two days in bed. He still "felt like shit", but at least he wasn't laying in bed like a defenseless baby bird.  
In fact, I told him that, which made him shake his head as if I was joking. I wasn't, but he doesn't need to know that, right? 

It was fairly quiet around the camp. I had finally given in and dragged my tent over where it was in the small circle of other makeshift houses, right beside a tree. That tree has my name, Lillian Maxwell, carved on it because Daryl told me to do it, so, of course, I had to.

But right now I was sitting in a lawn chair beside Daryl, eating eggs that I had helped Carol cook just a few minutes ago. Everyone was talking amongst themselves, until Glenn stood up in front of the group to say something. I noticed that he and Dale exchanged glances, then Glenn looked back towards us.

"Um... guys?" He said loudly, gaining the attention of everyone, even Carl, who was finishing the math problems his mother had written for him to keep him busy. It was actually a good idea.

"There's, um... the barn is full of Walkers."

This became a shock to everyone, except Dale and I. Glenn forced his gaze towards Maggie as she stormed inside of the house once again. 

Shane instantly became pissed, once again, and grabbed onto the gun at his hip. I could tell that Glenn sort of regretting telling everyone, but Dale said that they should know considering they were sleeping on the same lot as those monsters.

As fast as the news hit them, everyone was trudging toward the barn, grimaces on their faces and fire inside of their eyes. Shane peeked through a crack in the wood, shaking his head in defeat.

He looked to Rick then said, "You cannot tell me that you're alright with this."

Rick had nothing else to say, but he had to defend Hershel if he wanted to make the right choice and stay on the premises. But after that news, he didn't really know what to do.

"No, I'm not, but we're guests here. This isn't our land!" Rick shot back, looking to me as if this was my fault. I stood beside Daryl, holding onto his arm for dear life in fear of Rick shooting me in the face, or something. 

"Lower your voice." Glenn demanded, looking back towards the barn. I hadn't been this close to it before now, and it made my stomach feel queasy knowing that Hershel kept those things locked up inside of, basically, a cage. 

Andrea decided to speak up then, going against what Glenn begged.  
"We can't just sweep this under the rug." 

"We either gotta go in, make things right, or we've just got to go!" Shane yelled, addressing his anger towards Rick as they had another one of their bromance fights.  
"We've been talking about Fort Benning for a long time."

"We can't just go!" Rick yelled back at him, chewing on his bottom lip, trying to think of something we could do.

"Why, Rick? Why?"

"Because my daughter is still out there!" Carol yelped, pointing her finger towards the woods around us. I sighed, squeezing Daryl's arm tighter.

"Okay, Carol... I think it's time that we all start to just... consider the other possibilities." Shane rubbed his forehead, shaking his head at her. Rick quickly protested his words, stepping up to Shane.

"Shane, we are not leaving Sophia behind!" 

Daryl pulled away from my grasp, leaving my arms to go limp at my sides. The heat from his body left my body, making me a bit sad, but I didn't show it on my face.

"But I'm close to finding this girl. I just found her damn doll two days ago!" 

"You found her doll, Daryl. That's what you did; you found a doll." Shane rolled his eyes, waving Daryl off as a mere mistake. Daryl was clearly mad at this; he risked his entire life trying to find this girl and Shane just waves it off as a simple thing he did. 

Daryl start walking towards Shane, hatred radiating off of him every which way.  
"You don't know what the hell you're talkin' about!" Daryl yelled, sizing Shane up for a fight. 

I started biting down on my lip, hoping that this little disagreement didn't turn into an actual fist fight between the two of them. Thankfully, Rick quickly interjected between Shane and Daryl, trying to pull them away from each other before it got out of hand. 

"Man, I'm just saying what needs to be said! Now, you get a good lead, it's in the first forty-eight hours,"

"Shane stop it! We need to leave it alone, we have to just wait and talk to Hershel about." I yelled at him. He let his gaze follow me, and continued to ramble on as if he were talking to me. I grimaced, crossing my arms as he stared. 

"And let me tell you something else, man." Shane looked to Daryl.  
"If she was alive out there and saw you coming, all methed out with your buck knife, and, and Geek ears around your neck, she would run in the other direction." 

That was the last of it that Daryl was having. They started to throw punches, but Rick tried to get between the two of them, almost getting himself punched.

"Hey! Hey! Hey! Shane, stop it, now!" Rick started screaming as Andrea, Glenn, Lori, and I started to get in between them, trying to pry the two apart as they yelled curses at one another from almost three feet away.

As I tried to get between them, my face was instantly hit with a punch from one of the two. I had lost my balance, stumbling to the ground in a fit, grabbing at my burning face.

"Son of a bitch!" I cursed, taking deep breaths to help sooth the pain a bit.

Rick let go of Daryl's arm, reaching his hand out to me.

"Are you okay?"

I nodded, holding onto his hand as he hoisted me upward, back onto my feet.

Shane and Daryl stopped fighting as they realized what had happened. All eyes turned to me, that I quickly brushed off and looked to Rick for help.

"Now just let me talk to Hershel. Let me figure this out-" Rick tried to reason with him, but, God forbid, Shane was having none of that today. He quickly pulled up his defenses as they started yelling.

"What the hell are you gonna figure out!?" 

"If we're gonna stay, if we're gonna clear this barn, I have to talk him into it. This is his land." Rick yelled back, motioning everywhere around us.

Then, out of the blue, Dale decided to chime in with a very informative word that nobody bothered to acknowledge.

"Hershel sees those things in there as people - sick people - his wife, his stepson,"

"Wait, you knew?" Rick asked, baffled that the village wise man didn't tell him. 

"Lillian and I - yesterday I talked to Hershel." I was mad that he put my name into that sentence, but there's no possible way that I could change it now.

"And you waited the night? You didn't tell me? Didn't tell any of us?" Shane groaned, shooting me a glare before walking up towards Dale. This whole situation made my guts churn inside of my stomach. It was just awful seeing everyone fall apart like this, just because of a stupid barn that was perfectly secure.  
"You knew?"

Shane was staring at me, the trust draining from his eyes like oil from a broken car. I nodded slowly.  
"I'm sorry. I didn't know what to do, Dale told me to wait. I knew you'd get mad. Then about everything from yesterday-"

"To hell with yesterday! That's low, especially for you, keeping something like that to yourself."

"I thought we could survive one more night. We did. I was waiting till this morning to say something, but Glenn wanted to be the one." Dale chimed in, pulling the blame toward himself.

The chains that secured the barn tightly started to rattle, sending an anxious wave of shock through my body as all of the conversing stopped. Lori was ushering Carl away from the doors, along with Andrea and Dale. 

Daryl began to walk away, back towards the camp. I wasn't sure what to make of this situation, considering the way everyone turned on one another so quickly because they thought that it would be beneficiary. 

"I'm gonna go look for her again." Daryl started walking towards the stables, completely ignoring the fact that Hershel basically prohibited us from using his horses again after last time. I shook my head, trying to stop him from walking. 

"No, Daryl. Hershel said you need to heal still. Your stitches may reopen. We don't have anymore antibiotics to help it-"

"Yeah, well, I don't care." He shrugged me off, picking up a saddle off of the ground and placing it on a table. I groaned, following him around the stables as he opened a stall for a horse.

"Well, you should care. You just need to rest. Just take it easy-" 

"Lillian, I'm close to finding her. I can't just "take it easy" when there's a little girl's life on the line." 

"You don't even know if you will find her." That was the wrong thing to say. But I know that I can't exactly take it back, so I just looked away from him to ignore the glare was was giving me. 

"What?" 

"Daryl, she's been gone for how long now? Can't you just face it and realize she may not be out there to greet you when you come walking?" I needed to stop talking, but I couldn't. He was risking his life when Rick and Andrea were going out to find her anyway later today. They established that this morning.

"What if it was you out there, huh? You'd want someone to be lookin' for ya'." 

"I wouldn't want you risking your life for me, though."

<><><>

After Daryl and I stopped talking, I decided to make myself a bit useful and find Dale to see if he needed me to do anything. He was talking to Andrea in the RV when I walked up. 

"S'up?" Glenn waved casually down at me. I shrugged my shoulders glumly, trying to listen in on their conversation like the nosey person I am and always will be.

"I saw you and Daryl at the stables." Glenn stepped down off of the ladder, looking over towards me. I didn't know what to say, so I pointed towards his hat.

"It suits you." 

"What? Oh - it's Dales. Maggie kind of... scrambled eggs in mine." He laughed at his own joke, pulling the hat off of his head. I nodded awkwardly, turning my gaze towards the ground.

Andrea walked out of the RV, an annoyed expression in her face. She pushed passed me, walking away towards Rick as he came out of the farm house. I watched her walk away, rolling my eyes at how rude she was. 

"Um, rude." I muttered, crossing my arms as Andrea ignored me completely. I couldn't even think of a reason she'd be mad at me, besides the fact that I knew there were walkers in the barn. 

Actually, I'm gonna give her that one. That's a pretty logical reason to be pissed off.

"Hey, Glenn? Could you get me some water? I just, I need a minute." Dale yelled from the RV. Glenn looked to me, and then towards the watch post where he should be at.

"Could you watch for me? I'll be right back?" He asked, handing me the sniper rifle he held in his hands. I shrugged, but nodded my head anyway because honestly what else did I have to do around here? 

Glenn walked away, so I popped my head into the RV just to see what Dale was up to. Let's face it, the only Walker that came around here was Daryl, and that was days ago, so it was kind of okay for me to leave the watch post; just for a little bit.

"What's up?" I stepped up the stairs, looking over towards Dale as he picked up Shane's bag of guns he left on the table when he walked away. I knitted my eyebrows together, trying to infer what was happening in front of me.

"Uh, Lillian. If Shane asks, you don't know where I am, or where I went." 

"What are you doing?" I held onto the sniper rifle Glenn had given me, placing the safety on because I'm a clutz and do stupid shit when I'm nervous.

"I'm disposing of these... things. I wasn't here, okay?" 

"Okay." It was funny to think of what Dale was doing. Was he going to bury them? Throw them in a river where no one would be able to find them ever again? Hide them in a tree? The possibilities are endless! 

Dale didn't hesitate to walk away as fast as his legs could take him, away from the farm and into the woods.

Glenn finally came back with a canteen of water he had gotten from one of the wells on the property. I had only seen one, which was boarded up for some reason I would have to ask about later. 

"Where's Dale?" He looked disappointed for some reason. I shrugged, handing over the rifle that I wanted to get rid of finally. It was boring just sitting on top of the RV; I'm not sure how Glenn could do that all day. 

Then, Shane strolled by, with the usual pissed off look that was permanently glued onto his face. I couldn't help but think of yesterday and what had happened between us.

I tried my best not to look at him as I sat beside the RV's door, so I kept my eyes training on the knife I was holding in my hand. The blade had a ripple effect on my vision; I was staring at it for too long and my eyes went blurry for a swift second before returning back to normal again. 

I heard Shane inside of the RV, tearing things apart trying to find his precious bag of guns. The toolbox I had set on the bed fell to the ground, and the tools spewed out with it. 

"Lillian, where'd he go?" 

"Where'd who go?" I tore my gaze from the knife in my hands, then to Shane. He was even more angry with me now than at gun practice, and the barn.

"Don't give me that shit. Dale. Where did Dale go!?" 

"Pfft. How the hell am I supposed to know that? I'm not his babysitter, I just got here." I lied, looking back at my knife. Then I coughed, getting a suspicious look from him.

Shane started mumbling things under his breath, looking back at me.

"Which way?" 

I shrugged, standing on my feet to face him completely. Even though he was like, ten inches taller than I was. 

"I don't know. I didn't even see him after the barn, I was talking with Daryl." I felt bad for lying to him, but I also didn't want him to hurt Dale.

"Mhm, whatever." He stared down the field, finally making up his mind on where he was going to go. 

"That was messed up what you did. Like you said, after yesterday and what had happened-"

"What did happen yesterday? Shane, please enlighten me."

Glenn had walked away from the argument, which was a good thing for him so he wouldn't have to be miraculously dragged into it somehow. That also meant Shane and I could talk alone, as long as he kept his voice down.

We were standing at least a foot apart, and the height difference was absolutely noticable to everyone. I was afraid that someone would over hear what he had to say.

"Some sort of, I don't know, moment? Dammit, I just thought we were getting better."

"I wish we were. I didn't tell you because I knew what would happen if I did. You'd gather everyone up and break into the barn," I stopped mid-sentence, trying not to give him any ideas.

He nodded angrily, scratching the beard that had begun to grow on his cheeks. Shane threw his hands up in defense.

"What the hell else would I do? I'm trying to keep these people safe. That barn is a stone's throw away from our camp, you get that?"

"Hershel is going to kick us out if you do that, Shane."

"I'm sure he'd understand." Shane grimaced, taking the pistol out of his holster as he turned around.

"He won't. You don't get that. This isn't something we can just play off, yeah, but we don't need to resort to violence."

He just ignored me, as if I knew nothing. Like a toddler having a fit.

I watched him walk away towards the forest and sighed deeply, realizing that there was practically no stopping him now.

~*~

A few hours had passed, and finally Glenn and I got tired of sitting around the RV doing nothing, so he rangled the first person he saw walk by to do it. Carol.

She agreed, because she had nothing better to do. That sounds familiar...oh yeah, it's me.

Shane and Rick had been gone for about three hours, which didn't surprise me at all. They were probably off with Hershel practicing guns, or whatever it was that they did in their free time. Sooner or later, we migrated towards the farmhouse to catch up with Maggie and Beth. They were sitting outside, along with Carl and Lori 

But in a couple of minutes, all hell broke loose. Andrea and T-Dog were walking towards all of us, clearly shaken up by something. 

"Do you know what's goin' on?" T-Dog asked first, looking to Glenn and I as if we knew something. Of course, we did, but they didn't know that. Hopefully. 

"Where is everyone?" Andrea placed her hands on her head, searching around the camp to look for someone. 

"You haven't seen Rick?" I asked them, standing up from the stairs. Andrea shook her head, pointing towards the forest. 

"He went off with Hershel. We were supposed to leave a couple hours ago."

And then the king of squirrel hunting walked up, angry with everyone for nothing at all. He ignored my gaze, shooting one at Andrea instead. I was somewhat jealous that he was mad at her, but still acknowledged her presence. 

"Yeah you were. What the hell? Damn it, isn't anybody takin' this seriously?" Daryl shook his head, waving his arms towards the forest again. "We got us a damn trail!" 

My entire body felt tense as Shane strolled up, making loud footsteps on purpose. Daryl clapped his hands together, looking at the gun bag in his hands. I smacked Glenn's arm, motioning towards Shane.

"Shit." I could feel his stare burning a hole in my body as he grew closer towards the group on the porch. 

"What's all this?" Daryl asked, pointing to the guns with angst. I knew that this wasn't going to end well as soon as Shane handed a shotgun to Daryl.

"You with me, man?" 

"Yeah!" Daryl nodded, looking down at the shotgun in his hands, then to me. It seemed like an accident, but as soon as I caught his stare, I shook my head at him. 

"Where's Dale?" I asked, untangling my arms from each other to walk closer towards Shane. I wasn't sure if he had done something bad to him, like slit his throat or smacked him unconscious, but I also didn't want everyone to cower because Mr. Gunsmith was passing out weapons. 

"Oh, wouldn't you like to know? Got anymore things to hide?" Shane stepped closer towards me, inching his way into my brain. For a small moment, his eyes trailed down to my lips, then back up to my eyes. There was a weird vibe going on now.

Maggie quickly intervened, pushing on Shane's shoulders after he handed a gun to Glenn.  
"Can you stop? You do this, if you hand out these guns, my dad will make you leave tonight!" 

She was most likely right. After what she had told me about Hershel - how he sees these monsters as sick people - I knew that if we were to slip up and kill one, he would accuse us of murder. 

"We have to stay, Shane! We have to find Sophia!" Carl yelled over all of the yelling and fighting. I couldn't help but smile at the little boy's innocence. It's good that he still thinks there's hope, that's pretty rare from what I've seen.

"We're not going anywhere. Now, Hershel, he's just gonna have to understand, okay? He - well he's gonna have to. We need to find Sophia. Am I right? Now I want you to take this, take it, Carl you do whatever it takes, go on." 

Lori shrieked, pushing Carl back towards herself, out of the way of Shane.

"Rick said no guns. Shane, this is not your call! This is not your decision to make." 

Daryl backed up to stand beside me. I felt like crying. His entire group was falling apart because of a fucking barn. This isn't a tough decision to make, I don't think. 

"Oh, shit!" T-Dog yelled, pointing away towards the fields, then looking back to the group behind him. 

Now, this was quite a sight to see with my own eyes. Rick, Hershel, and Jimmy were holding onto Walkers with a K-9 stick, leading them away towards us and on the trail of the barn. I couldn't help but laugh, considering it was nerve wrecking to watch Rick do something like that.

Shane started cursing under his breath, then gradually got louder as he started to run towards the three men, and two Walkers. "What the hell is that!?" He would scream over and over, quickening his pace. Now I can see the Police Officer in him; that man has some good stamina.

Daryl began to run after Shane, along with everyone else. I, of course, didn't want to feel left out, so I did the only logical thing to do at this point: run. 

"Man what the hell're you doing!?" 

"Shane, just back off!" Rick threatened, and looked to Hershel for some kind of support. I was completely out of breath; you would think I would have good cardio at a time like this, but you're dead wrong. 

"Why do your people have guns?" Hershel yelled over the commotion. On instinct, I tucked the gun Shane gave me yesterday into my jeans, trying not to look suspicious as I did so.

Daryl grabbed my hand tightly, pulling me backwards away from the K-9 Walkers, as I liked to call them, and further away from Shane as he started yelling curses at Rick again.

"Daryl, this isn't good!" I mumbled, tightening the grasp of our hands together. He nodded, but continued to hold the gun in his hand. 

"Are you kidding me? Do you see what they're holding onto?" 

"I see who I'm holding onto!" Hershel yelled, trying his best to control the Walker he had in his grasp. It hurt to watch, but I couldn't stop staring at the walker Rick had in his grasp. He seemed so familiar, yet I couldn't tell who it was.

"No, man, you don't." 

"Oh my god." And then I realized who the Walker was. From the ripped jeans, the broken glasses that hung from the plaid shirt, and the stupid wind-up watch on this left wrist. 

It was Logan. 

"Daryl - you need to stop him. Oh my god." I was having a panic attack, staring at the Walker beside Rick. I didn't know how to feel at this point. I wasn't really close with Logan, but I knew that he was okay enough not to turn into a Walker. 

"Shane, just let us do this and then we can talk." Rick screamed over the yelling and fighting. I wanted to cry; not only for Logan, but for the fact that I won't know where my brother went because he's probably dead if Logan is too. 

"What you want to talk about, Rick? These things ain't sick. They're not people! They're dead. Ain't got to feel nothing for them, 'cause all they do is kill!" Shane was yelling. 

"Shane, shut up!" I finally brought myself to yell, stepping up towards him. Shane and I made eye contact, until he looked away back at the Walkers on leashes. 

"You have not room to speak, Lillian." Shane snapped, pointing his index finger at me. I pursed my lips, realizing that he was right. Who would listen to me, anyway? I'm the new one here.

"Hey, Hershel, man, let me ask you somethin'. Could a living, breathing person," he quickly pulled the pistol from his holster, pulling the barrel backwards before pointing it at the other walker that Hershel held.

"Could they walk away from this?" 

In an instant, Shane pulled the trigger three times, all of the bullets impaling into the walker's body, completely missing the head for a reason. Daryl was stiff, letting go of my hand to hold the shotgun easier. 

Hershel didn't move. He watched the Walker come back from the bullets as if they were nerf darts from a toy gun. He seemed desperate to let it go after watching what Shane did, but he just kept staring at the bullet holes.

"Stop it, Shane!" Rick was yelling. Daryl rushed to his side, pointing the shotgun in his hands at the Logan-Walker's head, just in case. I wanted to leave, just to sit down and cry. 

"That's three rounds in the chest! Could someone who's alive, could they just take that!? Why is it still coming?" Shane let off another three rounds, shooting directly at it's heart. Sure enough, the Walker kept coming at us, trying to grab at the people surrounding it.

"Why is it still comin'!?" Another three shots, this time in the shoulder and stomach. It was an awful sight to see, watching Shane take out his anger on a Walker. 

My eyes kept going back to the Logan-Walker Rick was holding onto. He looked empty, as if everything he lived for was nothing at all. He was smart, and although he was annoying, he cared for the well being of others. 

"Shane! Enough!" Rick yelled at the man who put on a show of killing these things. Shane laughed, nodding his head up and down.

"Yeah, you're right, man. That is enough." He started walking closer towards the Walker, taking his pistol and pointing it at the dead weight's head. I shut my eyes, hearing the gunshot ring out, and a body slumping to the ground. 

Everyone was completely devastated. Not because of the roamer dying, but because of Shane's next words he decided to scream out to everyone.

"Enough risking our lives for a little girl who's gone!" Carol gasped as if he had just offended everything she lived for. Although, he basically just did.

"Enough living next to a barn full of things that are trying to kill us! Enough! Rick, it ain't like it was before. If y'all wanna live, if you want to survive, you gotta fight for it! I'm talking about fighting right here, right now!" 

Shane didn't hesitate for even a second to charge his body towards the barn. I wasn't sure at first how he was going to break the lock, but then Shane picked up an old, rusted pickaxe off of the ground and started bashing the lock in. Time after time, trying to break the door chains off. 

Rick started yelling at Hershel to take the snare pole, and then time stopped as Shane cracked open the barn doors, over and over again he tried breaking it open and finally succeeded.

"Lillian, get behind me!" Daryl screamed at me, pushing me backwards with one of his hands. I shook my head as the barn doors were opened, grabbing onto my pistol at the back of my jeans, tucked between my belt. I didn't know what to do, or if it was okay for me to start shooting as roamers started pouring out of the doors.

Shane took the first shot, which meant that anyone was entitled to start shooting. 

So I did. 

It might have been a bad idea, but I wasn't going to let those things come near me or anyone else in the group.

Rick was still struggling with the K-9 pole that had Logan-walker snared into it. He was screaming at Hershel to take it so he could help shoot, but Hershel was too busy being in shock from all of the excitement. 

So I turned around, lifted my gun up towards the Logan-walker, and pulled the trigger, watching it fall to the ground violently. Rick stared at me for a moment, then nodded his head in thanks, dropping the pole.

If anyone had to shoot him, I'm kind of glad that it was me. I'm the only one here that actually knew him, even a little bit. 

After about fifty shots rang out, every Walker that inhabited that barn was dead, on the ground, with a bullet through their head. Maggie, Beth, and Patricia were crying, leaving Jimmy and Hershel in a shock. 

I thought it was all over, that the barn was cleared out, until another low growl came from inside. We all waited, our breaths abating as the growls grew louder. She stepped out, in a blue rainbow shirt, her hair matted in every place you would look. A bite mark on her neck, dried blood oozed out.

Everyone started crying, and whimpering. I didn't clearly understand until Carol caught eye and started running towards the corpse, screaming her name over and over again.

"Oh, Sophia! Sophia!" She cried, until Daryl stopped her from running any further towards the Walker. Then it hit me like a bag of bricks falling from a building.

Daryl risked his life, everyone did, for someone that was already dead and inside of this stupid barn. Why wouldn't Hershel tell anyone? 

After a long moment, Rick finally stepped up to the plate, cocking the shotgun in his hands. I covered my mouth, trying to look away as he pulled the trigger, but something told me not to.

The bullet went straight through, and into her head. Sophia was gone all along.


	15. Not Gonna Die Tonight

I didn't know what to do at this point. Beth was sobbing uncontrollably, Shane had started to yell at Hershel for not telling us about Sophia, and I was on the ground now, staring at Logan's dead body. 

He looked so peaceful now, even if there was blood everywhere from where I shot him. It didn't look like he had the chance to eat anything since becoming a Dead Weight, considering there wasn't any blood around his mouth. I didn't know if that was a good thing. 

Daryl walked beside me, kneeling down on the ground. "Did you know him?" 

I shook my head, because I really didn't. I only knew his name, but it was still sad. The red was gone from his cheeks, and a lens from his glasses was cracked completely, leaving an empty space. I didn't know how to feel about his death; he abandoned us at the station, but he didn't exactly deserve to die.

"No, I just...it's sad." 

"Mhm." Daryl held out his hand, waiting for me to take it. I grabbed onto him, still looking at Logan as I hoisted myself upward, wrapping my arms around Daryl like an overprotective puppy. He didn't seem to mind, though.

"We've been out, we've been combing these woods looking for that girl," Shane had started to yell. I wanted to stab him for making all of this happen. But, if it weren't for him, Daryl would be risking his life again to look for someone who isn't real anymore. "She was in there all along?" 

I didn't turn my head to look at anyone, but I didn't exactly have to in order to know that it was Shane and Rick who were screaming at each other. I wish they'd just kill someone and get it over with already; this camp just needed peace and quiet for once. 

"Otis put those people in the barn, maybe he found her and put her in there before he was killed?" Hershel suggested, chaperoning Beth and Patricia inside of the house. Finally I looked over at them, watching Shane scoff.

"You expect me to believe that? Do I look like an idiot?" Yes, you really do, Shane. 

"Shane stop it!" Rick cut in, pushing Shane out of the way so he could talk to Hershel. "Everybody just calm down."

"Get him off my land!" Hershel yelled at no one in particular, but he pointed towards Shane. I wanted to get a better look at what was happening, but Daryl pulled me back, shaking his head in a protest.

Finally, Maggie had enough of everything. She stood up to Shane, yelling at him to leave her dad alone. Maggie prought her hand back, slapping Shane across the face. "Don't touch him! Haven't you done enough?"

Hershel, Patricia, Maggie, and Beth all disappeared into the house one after another, without another word from anyone.

"Your group is fucked." I whispered to Daryl, letting go of his hand. 

~*~

They held a memorial service for Shaun, Annette, and Sophia. Carol refused to attend; she said that this poor sod wasn't her Sophia, and she would have no part of the funeral. I didn't blame her that much, because it really wasn't her daughter. Not her spirit, at least.

After a short moment of silence, we all went our separate ways, excluding Carl who decided he would sit with Sophia. I asked specifically for Andrea and T-Dog to burn Logan, because I didn't feel it was right to bury him with everyone else.

Daryl held my hand more often, which was something new to me. It was probably because he felt bad for me; but he didn't take pity on people from what I've seen. 

We were sitting on the ground beside a fence, watching Andrea and T. as they were packing up bodies to burn them. The door to the house slammed shut, Maggie was following Rick and Glenn out of the door. I watched them walk towards the truck, and I was instantly curious to where they were going. 

"Hey, Rick?" I stood up, slowly walking over towards him. He perked his head up, smiling at me. "Have you seen Hershel? I wanted to ask if he had any Ibeprofen." I lied, looking towards Daryl as he stalked off towards the tents.

"You're just the person I wanted to see, Lillian. How good are you with people skills?" Rick asked me, leaning against the truck for support. I was surprised by this, obviously. 

I furrowed my eyebrows, shoulders slumping. "I don't know - good I guess? Why, is there something you need?" 

"Can you come with Glenn and I to find Hershel?" 

"He's missing?" 

Rick nodded his head, motioning to Glenn as he and Maggie parted ways after saying goodbye to each other. I looked to Glenn with a sad smile, then back towards Rick.

"If you want me to. I should go get my pistol, first." I lied to Rick for once. I just wanted to say goodbye to Daryl before I left so he didn't worry; not that he actually would. 

"Okay, just be right here in a few minutes. We'll be waiting." Rick patted the truck's driver door, taking out his revolver. I nodded, turning around to walk away towards the tents. 

It wasn't hard to find Daryl, considering he was leaning against a tree scraping away at a wooden stick. Honestly, sometimes I don't understand him.

"I'm gonna go on a run with Rick and Glenn."

"Do you need my permission or somethin'?" Daryl scoffed, not even looking up at me as he continued to mess with the wood. I rolled my eyes at him, shaking my head.

"No, but I...I just didn't want you to, to worry or anything. Not that you would..." I muttered under my breath, smiling at him anyway. Daryl stopped scraping the knife, and looked down at me. His scowl made the smile rip off of my face at a moments notice, but I didn't let that get to me.

"I'll be back soon." I took a huge chance by wrapping my arms completely around him, squeezing tightly. Daryl's entire body tensed up at first, but then he wrapped one of his arms around me, too. Biggest accomplishment of my entire year: getting Daryl to hug me back.

I let go, after what seemed like forever, and turned my back on Daryl to walk away towards Rick. 

"Lillian," he called after me. I didn't turn around all the way, but I stopped walking so he could say whatever it was he needed to. "Can you come back in one piece for God's sake?" 

I gave him a short thumbs up, before walking away once more towards Glenn and Rick. 

<><><>

I was really surprised that Rick had asked me to go with them. I have zero people skills whatsoever, and I've only talked to Hershel once or twice in the week that I've been here, so why me? I don't even know my way around this town, let alone the farm itself. 

It didn't take that long to get to town, especially since it was just down the road. It was probably the most awkward ride I had ever been on, beside from when I rode with Shane last time. 

Glenn disrupted the silence by looking over to Rick, jittery and giddy.

"Maggie said she loves me." He looked out the window, sighing for a bit. "She doesn't mean it. I mean, she can't! I mean, why..."

"I think she's smart enough to know what she's feeling." Rick smiled at him. I nodded, even if they weren't paying any attention to me. 

"No, no...she, she wants to be in love - she needs something to hold onto?" Glenn sighed, rubbing his forehead; something he does when he's nervous.

"Glenn! I think it's pretty obvious to everyone that she loves you, and not just because you're one of the last men standing..." I patted his shoulder, Rick agreeing with me by nodding. 

"So what's the problem?" Rick asked, sitting back in his seat to make himself more comfortable. Glenn hesitated to answer, then he sighed.

"I didn't say it back." 

"Oh, boy." I wheezed, looking to Rick to see what he had to say. Rick just nodded, shaking his head slightly. Glenn was beating himself up over this, I could tell.

"I've never had a women say that to me before! What does she even know about me? We're practically strangers..." 

"Why don't you say it when you get back? It's not like she's going anywhere, right?" I shrugged my shoulders, laying down in the back seat, putting my feet up to the window. I needed to find new shoes; the ones I have, have a hole in the side. Good thing it hasn't rained or my socks would be wet from the puddles.

Rick stopped the engine suddenly, making me almost fall out of the seat and into the floor. He laughed, giving me an apologetic look before opening the door.

"Rick?" Glenn caught his attention, "I know about Lori...her being pregnant. Lillian and I did...but I got her those pills." 

"I figured as much." Rick looked at me for a second, then to Glenn again. I opened the back door, sniffing the fresh air finally. It was nice out here; not too cold, not too hot.

"I'm sorry we kept it from you." I muttered, pulling out my pistol just in case there were Dead Weights around to sneak up on us. Rick sighed. 

"Don't be. You guys were doing what you thought was right." 

The tension grew above our heads as the silence lingered for a moment until Rick looked in the window of the bar. The glass was murky, so he didn't have much luck.

"Be careful, okay?" I nodded, pointing my gun towards the door, just in case something were to pop up at short notice. Rick took the chance to turn the doorknob, peeking inside. I guess the coast was clear, because he went ahead and walked right on in.

And there he was; Hershel Greene in the flesh and blood. I scoffed, putting my gun back into my jeans between my belt and started to walk towards the man.

"Who's with you?" Hershel sighed, not bothering to turn around to look at us.

Rick exchanged glances with the two of us, looking back towards the old man.

"Glenn and Lillian." Rick loosened up a bit. Hershel had a shot glass in his hand, so I assumed he came here to get shit-face drunk after Annette's funeral. I don't blame him, though.

"How many of those have you had?" I asked, sitting down next to him on the barstool. Hershel stared down at the brown liquid in the cup. 

"Not enough." 

"Beth collapsed, she's in some sort of state...must be in shock. I think you are, too." Rick whispered to Hershel. It wasn't hard to hear what they were saying, though. The entire bar was empty except for the four of us.

"Is Maggie with her?" Hershel asked, finally looking up at Rick. He nodded, and placed his hand on Hershel's shoulder, as if to reason with him. "And what could I do? She needs her mother, or rather to mourn. I robbed her of that, Rick..."

"You thought there was a cure. You can't blame yourself for holding onto hope." 

"Hope?" Hershel started to laugh out loud, shaking his head at Rick. "Rick, when I first saw you running across my field, with your boy in your arms, I had little hope he would survive."

Is that how he found the farm? Is that how Carl was shot; did Otis tell him to look for Hershel, which made his group end up staying here instead? This was a story I had to ask about one day; probably to Daryl.

"Even though we lost Otis, your man Shane made it back. Then we saved your boy. That was the miracle that proved to me they do exist. Only it was a sham, a bait and switch. I was a fool, Rick...and you all saw that." 

Hershel took another sip of the liquor in the cup, picking up a bottle to try opening it. I took this as a chance to strike, so I leaned over the bar, trying to find another glass. If we weren't going to persuade him by talking, I might as well drink along with him.

It was probably a bad idea, but I wasn't the one driving, so why not? I slapped the cup onto the table and looked back to Hershel. He went right ahead and handed the bottle to me, which I took and started to pour myself a drink.

Rick rolled his eyes, snatching the bottle from my hands before I had the chance to pour even a drop into the cup. "Are you even old enough to be drinking?" He walked away with the bottle. I stuck my tongue out, looking to Glenn.

"I'm perfectly within the legal drinking age - I'm twenty-nine." 

"Yeah, okay. But I'd rather you not be drunk when we get you back; that wouldn't look good." Glenn was watching the area, looking around suspiciously. I blew raspberries at him, looking to Hershel. 

"Then what are we supposed to do? Wait until he passes out?" I sneered, jumping onto the counter top to look back at Rick. He shook his head, biting down on his bottom lip.

"Just go. Just go!" Hershel screamed at us, taking another long sip of his liquor before looking at me. I sighed, turning to Rick.

"I promised Maggie I'd bring you home safe." Rick started, being cut off by Hershel who had started to laugh again.

"Like you promised that little girl?" 

I stopped Rick before he got any closer towards Hershel. After all, he was just drunk; he didn't really mean anything he said, right?

"So what's your plan then? You gonna finish that bottle? Drink yourself to death and leave your girls alone?" Rick was yelling, stepping closer towards Hershel. I stood beside Glenn, shaking my head sadly as they continued to fight with each other. Broken. This group was breaking. 

"Stop telling me how to care for my family, my farm! You people are like a plague! I do the Christian thing, give you shelter, and you destroy it all!" Hershel started yelling back. This wasn't going to end well, this wasn't going to end well at all. Glenn was searching around the parking lot just in case, for the fifth time now. 

"The world was in bad shape when we met!" 

"And you take no responsibility! You're supposed to be their leader!" Hershel pointed at Glenn and I, staring at us for at moment before looming back at Rick.

I wanted to say something, really, but I felt like it was all a bad time and that I might get punched by a drunk Hershel or an angry Rick. So I stayed back by Glenn and kept my mouth shut.

"I'm here now, aren't I?" They kept each other in their sights, shaking their heads in a small dismay. I wanted to make them stop yelling; sooner or later Roamers might hear them.

"Yes," Hershel finally gave in to what Rick was saying. "Yes, you are." 

"Come on, Hershel. Your daughters need you, now." I finally spoke up, pulling the sleeves of my jacket down as a cold breeze flew into the bar. Glenn seemed distraught, shaking his head at me to keep quiet. 

"I didn't want to believe you all. You, you told me there was no cure, that those people were dead, not sick. I chose not to believe that." Hershel was hysterical now, blubbering to no end, "But, but when Shane shot Lou in the chest...and she just..just kept coming, that's when I knew what an ass I'd been, that Annette had been dead long ago and I was feeding her rotten corpse! That's when I knew there was no hope.

"And when that little girl came out of the barn, the look on your face - I knew you knew it, too. Right? There is no hope, and you know it now, like I do. Don't you? There's no hope for any of us." 

Rick and I looked at each other, to which I averted my gaze and started tracing a circle on the counter where I sat atop. He was probably right, though. All the hope is lost, and there wasn't anything we could do to save it now.

"You know what the truth is? Nothing has changed. Death is death, it's always been there, whether it's from a heart attack, cancer, or a walker. What's the difference?" Rick whispered, his voice creaking everytime he spoke a word to him. 

"You didn't think it was hopeless before, did you? There's people back at the farm trying to hang on; they need us. This isn't about what we believe anymore, it's about those people." I hopped off of the table, standing beside Hershel as I tried to help Rick persuade him to coming back with us. 

We had been here for who knows how long, and I was ready to leave this bar; it smells like tears and mildew. It was quite unsettling to step foot in here. Hershel stared at the liquor glass in his hands, then looked up at me. He finished off what was left in the cup, standing up finally. I was ecstatic; we could finally leave. 

Just as we turned around, the door chime rang and two men stepped inside, stopping in their tracks as they saw the four of us. I looked to Glenn, a bit angry that he left his post at the door.

"Son of a bitch. They're alive." The tall, scrawny man smiled happily, looking to his friend; a short, fatter version of himself. That was a bit rude, but I tell it how I see it. 

Rick and Glenn looked at each other, and then back to the two men confused as to what they were doing here.


	16. Give Them Hell

Before I knew what exactly was happening, Rick was pouring shots for everyone in the room. The two men were laughing about something I had tuned out minutes ago.

"I'm Dave. That scrawny-looking douchebag there is Tony." Of course, he was being sarcastic enough to know Tony wasn't having any of his shit.

"Eat me, Dave." Tony rolled his eyes, crossing his arms. I watched the two of them closely, my legs were crossed as I sat on top of the bar with my pistol by my side. 

"Hmm, maybe someday I will." Dave laughed at his own joke, looking to Rick.

"We met on I-95 coming out of Philly. Damn shit-show that was. There was a camp burnin' like no one's business." I inferred he was talking about my camp I had left a week ago. It was on I-95. 

"Well, I'm Glenn. It's nice to see some new people." Glenn spoke up, waving casually at the two men sitting in front of us. 

"Rick Grimes." Rick had started to pass out shots, shooting me a look as he cautiously handed one to me. I sighed.

"I won't drink it, okay?" I rolled my eyes, setting the drink down beside me. Rick gave me a small smile, then continued to pass them out.

"How 'bout you? You got a name?" Dave asked me, staring at me from where he sat slumped in his chair. I looked up at him, and away from my shoes.

"Lillian." 

"Ahh.." he bit down on his bottom lip, looking away from me as Rick shot him a weary look. "I've never known a Lillian." Dave shrugged his shoulders.

"I've known a Dave." I laughed, picking up the shot glass beside my body, swirling the liquid around in the cup.

"Oh, yeah?" 

"Mhm. He was a real asshole." I sniggered, earning myself a bad look from Rick. I shrugged my shoulders loosely, looking back at Dave as he slumped in his chair with a smile on his face.

"Well, I'm not an asshole, ain't that right, Tony?" 

Tony responded by giving a small grunt, looking at me with a grin. "Ain't got nothing to worry 'bout, sweetheart." 

I already didn't like these guys, and I've only known them for ten minutes; they're bad ju-ju in my eyes. I wanted to slap him for even looking at me, let alone calling me "sweetheart"

Dave leaned over after downing his shot, which caught the attention of Rick as he spotted a pistol in his back pocket. I grasped the handle of my gun tighter, waiting for the signal to shoot them. I really wanted to. 

"Nice, isn't it? Got it off of a cop." Dave set the gun on the table beside him, facing away from Rick. I couldn't help but laugh at his choice of words. 

"I'm a cop." Rick sat down on a barstool beside Hershel and I, resting his arm on the bar beside my foot. Dave nodded.

"This one was already dead." 

"Ah." 

There was another few seconds of silence, until I decided to speak up, looking at Rick's hand the entire time I spoke. "You're a long way from Philadelphia." 

"It feels like a long way from anywhere." 

"What drove you south?" Glenn asked, more intrigued in the conversation than anyone else was at this point. 

"Well, I can tell you it wasn't the weather. I must've dropped thirty pounds in sweat alone down here." I sniggered at his remark, picking the dirt out from under my fingernails. It was annoying and gross.

"Nah, first it was DC. Heard there might be some kind of refugee camp...but the roads were so jammed we never got close. Decided to get off the highways, into the sticks, and keep hauling ass." 

Dave and I made eye contact for an awkward amount of time before he looked away towards the ground. He continued to talk.

"Every group we came across had a new rumor about a way out of this thing." 

"One guy told us there was a Coast Guard center in the Gulf, sending ferries to the islands." Tony laughed, shaking his head. 

"The, the latest was a rail yard in Montgomery running trains to the middle of the country - Kansas, Nebraska-"

"Nebraska?" Rick questioned, looking to me as if these people were crazy. I sighed. Maybe they were.

"Yeah. Low population, lots of guns." Tony nodded his head.

"Kinda makes sense." Glenn shrugged his shoulders, staring down at the empty shot glass he held. 

"You ever been to Nebraska, kid? The reason they call 'em flyover states." Tony laughed at the joke Dave made, which I didn't really understand. I wasn't listening half of the time, either.

"How about you guys?" Dave looked up, averting his eyes purposely from my stare. It was hard to read him, to understand what exactly he was feeling right now. He was creeped out, from the looks of it.

"Fort Benning, eventually." Rick lied, finally downing the shot he had poured minutes ago. I was already tired of this conversation. 

"I hate to, to piss in your cornflakes officer, but...we ran across a grunt who was stationed at Fort Benning. He said the place was overrun by Lamebrains." 

That's what they called those things? Who in the hell came up with that? 

"Fort Benning is gone? Are you for real?" Glenn grunted, shaking his head in frustration. Damn! There goes our vacation plans, right?

"I am." Dave nodded, pausing a moment. "Ugly truth is, there's no way out of this mess. Just keep going from one pipe dream to the next, praying one of those mindless freaks doesn't grab ahold of you while you sleep." He darkly added, stifling a laugh. 

"It uh, doesn't look like you guys are hangin' your hats here. You holed up somewhere else?" Dave asked. He was getting on my last nerve, why couldn't they just leave us alone and go on their merry way?

"Not really." Rick lied, shaking his head "no". Dave nodded, not buying in to his story. 

"Those your cars out front?" 

"Yeah. Why?" Hershel asks, staring at the two men like I had been doing. I could tell he was tired of the conversation too.

"Huh. We're living in ours. Those look kinda empty; cleaned out. Where's all your gear?" He pushed on, looking towards me with a smile. What I would give just to shoot his face off right now...

"We're with a larger group. Out scouting; thought we could use a drink." Hershel shrugged his shoulders. 

"A drink? Hershel, I thought you quit! Well...we were thinking about setting up around here. Is it safe?" Dave awkwardly asked. Glenn decided it was his turn to speak up.

"It can be. Although I have killed a couple of Walkers around here." 

Dave decided to laugh at the name. "Walkers? That's what you call them?" He's the one to talk; pfft, Lamebrains. Wow, so creative!

"Yeah." I nodded my head. 

"That's good. I like that. I like that better than 'Lamebrains'." That didn't surprise me.

"More succinct." Tony added proudly.

"Okay, Tony went to college." Dave rolled his eyes at the man beside him.

"Two years." Tony nodded. Jokes on him, I went for five years. 

The silence was growing, so I decided that if I were to get through this conversation without blowing up, I really needed that drink. So I picked up the shot, holding it to my lips and drank the small batch. It tasted bitter and nasty, but I liked it for some reason.

"So, so what's up - you guys set up on the outskirts or something? That new development? Trailer park or something?" Dave asked. I wish they'd just stop trying to be our friends. 

Tony stood up suddenly, walking over to a wall as Dave started to sing off key.

"Old McDonald had a farm." He whistled. "You on a farm?" 

Tony unzipped his pants, and a leaking sound shuddered throughout the building. I was awfully disgusted, that I showed it on my face clearly. 

"Tony, we have a lady friend here, pull up your damn pants, man." Dave rolled his eyes, looking at me then. "Please excuse my friend over here." 

I just jumped off of the bar, grabbing my pistol, removing myself from where Tony was just a few feet away from me, and walked on the other side of Rick, glaring at the ground. It shouldn't bother me much, but urine is really disgusting and the smell is nasty and musky, so I would rather not throw up today. 

"Is it safe? It's gotta be. You got food, water?" Dave asked, wanting to know every single detail of what we were doing. I sighed, looking at Rick.

"You got cooze?" Tony laughed at himself, looking towards me. "Ain't had a piece off ass in weeks." He winked. Dave noticed, slapping himself in the face apologetically. I rolled my eyes, shaking my head in annoyance. Thank god Rick would never let these people into their camp. 

"Again, listen, pardon my friend. City kids - they got no tact. No disrespect. So listen, Glenn-" 

"I think we've said enough." Rick nodded his head, slouching on the barstool he sat on. 

"Now, wait a second, this farm sounds pretty sweet. Don't it sound sweet, Tony?" 

"Yeah, real sweet." Tony chuckled to himself. These guys were awful.

"How about a little southern hospitality? We got some buddies, back at camp, been having a real hard time. I don't see why you can't make room for a few more. We could pool or resources, our man power." 

"Look, I'm sorry. That's not an option." Rick protested, trying to make them back off. I wish they would and just burn in a fire; it might be their best choice.

"Doesn't uh, doesn't sound like it'd be a problem..." Dave shrugged, looking down at the wooden floorboards.

"I'm sorry, we can't." Hershel chimed in, shaking his head sadly. "We can't take in anymore." 

"Heh. You guys are something else. I thought - I thought we were friends. We got people we need to look out for, too." 

Dave was trying to make us feel guilty, or something of the sort. He wasn't trying very hard, though. His stories where completely bullshit.

"We don't know anything about you." I whispered, which was loud enough for everyone to hear in the quiet room we all stood in. 

"No, that's true. You don't know anything about us. You don't know what we've had to go through out there. The things we've has to do. I bet you had to do some of those same things yourself. Am I right?" 

Our eyes locked for what seemed like forever, until he finally decided to talk again. I was reluctant to listen at first.

"'Cause ain't nobody's hands clean in what's left of this world. We're all the same. So come on, let's - let's take a nice friendly hayride to this farm, and we'll get to know each other?" Dave smiled politely at me, sitting back in his chair again. I narrowed my eyes at him, opening my mouth to say something until Rick stopped me.

"That's not gonna happen." Rick shrugged, looking over to Tony.

"This is bullshit." Tony spat, shaking his head angrily. 

"Calm down." Rick rolled his eyes.

"Don't tell me to calm down! Don't ever tell me to calm down." Tony was getting pissed at nothing. Why can't they just go back and live in their car again? Or find a farm of their own? "I'll shoot you four assholes in the face and take your damn farm!" 

This caused Rick to stand up to Tony, glaring at him as if he would shoot him himself. I grabbed onto the pistol beside me, holding it down to my side. If all hell broke loose, I really didnt want to be unarmed. 

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, relax! Take it easy, nobody's killing anybody. Nobody's shooting anybody. Right, Rick?" Dave stood in front of me, smiling as he dove beside me behind the bar to look for something. I shuffled backwards, watching him closely. 

Tony reached for his gun, and that's when I held my finger on my gun's trigger, looking at Glenn as he did the same with the shotgun in his hands. If the time we're to come, we could possibly shoot them on short notice. Hershel looked at me, shaking his head as I inched the pistol forward. I sighed.

"Okay, look." Dave slowly placed the gun in his jeans onto the bar, facing it away from himself. I glared at him.

"Nothin' to worry 'bout, hon." He smiled at me, then looked to Rick and Glenn. "We're just friends having a drink. That's all. Now! Where's the good stuff, huh? Let's see here..." 

Glenn and I looked at one another, worried expressions planted on our faces. Dave bent over behind the bar, searching the shelves for more liquor. Rick reached for his revolver, quickly stopping himself as Dave stood back up with a bottle. 

"That'll work." Dave nodded his head, unscrewing the cap. "You gotta understand - we can't stay out there. You know what it's like." 

"Yeah, I do." Rick said sternly, his hand was still lingering around his belt holster, waiting for the right moment to grab his gun. "But the farm is too crowded as is, I'm sorry. You'll have to keep looking." 

"Keep looking." Dave scoffed, "Where do you suggest we do that?" 

"I hear Nebraska's nice." I snickered, getting a hateful look from Rick, and a laugh from Dave. It wasn't supposed to be funny to anyone but myself. 

"Nebraska!" Dave grinned, shaking his head at my remark. "You're funny, Lillian."

Before I could get another word in, Dave drew his gun on Rick, falling backwards as Rick shot him directly in the head, turning around swiftly and shooting Tony is the chest twice before lowering his gun. I stared at the dead bodies in shock, looking to Rick with a smile.

"Holy shit!" I held my face with my hands, watching Rick as he shot Tony again in the head, turning back towards Dave. 

"Yeah, don't get used to that." He mumbled before reaching behind the bar towards Dave's body. I had to get ahold of myself, but that was the fastest reflexes I've ever seen, even from Cole. I probably sounded like a psycho, but it was just really cool to watch. Good thing he shot them in the head so they wouldn't come back though. 

"We should be getting back" Hershel said, Rick nodded his head in agreement. Glenn and I were astounded; we couldn't keep our eyes off of Tony's dead body as it started bleeding all over the wooden floor. 

Rick bent down towards the body, starting to search through his pockets. He handed the shotgun to me, continuing on his search. I watched as he pulled out three shotgun shells.

I quickly handed the weapon to Hershel, seeing as he had no visible gun on him that I could see. 

Headlights flashed through the window, sending Rick into attack mode. "Car! Get down!" He started crouching next to the door. I did the same, but I sat completely down on my rear beside him. Another car's headlights whizzed by, making Rick curse under his breath. 

"Dave? Tony?" A voice called out, looking for the dead men Rick had just shot. My insides twisted together, anxiety going through the roof right now. Hershel gave Rick a look of displeasure, shaking his head sadly. 

It wasn't really his fault; Dave pulled the gun on him first, so it was best that he shoot him. 

"Yo, Dave! Tony!"

"Shut up, you idiot! You wanna attract 'em?" I guess the man was referring to Roamers around the area; that was a sure-fire way to attract an entire hoard: yelling.

"Just stick close, we'll find 'em." Another man said in response. I tried to make my breath shallow, just in case they were listening in on what we were doing. 

Shadows were dancing along the walls, whispering to one another as Rick and I stared at each other. He shook his head, resting his hand on my knee to try to calm me down. But my breath was quickening, inhaling air was getting harder to do as time went on.

"It's alright. Don't worry." Rick mouthed to me, squeezing my knee a bit. I closed my eyes, nodding slightly, and started to count to ten; maybe it'll help me regain the air in my lungs. 

"Why won't they leave?" Glenn whispered to himself, looking towards Hershel. I could tell he was getting frustrated as the other men kept calling out for Dave and Tony, and with no luck they'd keep doing to again.

"Would you?" Hershel whispered back at him, more stern this time. Glenn shook his head, and turned his gaze to the ground.

My heart was pounding rapidly now as their voices grew closer towards us. I didn't know what they wanted me to do, so I sat on the ground quietly, inhaling and exhaling slowly.

Rick looked back at me, a sympathetic look, exposing his features. He suddenly placed his hand on my shoulder, looking at me straightforward.

"It'll be okay. We're gonna make it out of this, alive." Rick put an empathic power into the last word, nodding his head confidently with a weak smile. I couldn't help but feel like that was a lie, but I had to nod just so he'd focus on the situation and not me. 

"We can't sit here any longer. Let's head out the back and make a run for the car." Rick decided after crawling over to where Hershel and Glenn were crouched. Hershel nodded, along with Glenn and I.

As we all started to crab walk towards the back passageway, Glenn ever-so-clumsily knocks over three pool cues, wincing as they hit the ground with a clatter. I shot him an angry look, watching the doors in shock.

We all clambered back to the wall, watching as the doors were being pushed open by the men who were shooting at Dead Weights like the friggin' idiots they are.

Glenn hesitated before shoving himself in front of the French doors, regretting it the moment after he sat down. I laughed a bit; I was surprised he actually did that.

"Someone pushed it shut." One of the men said, frustrated to the max. "There's someone in there." 

"Yo, is someone in there?" The voice said louder, echoing throughout the building. "Yo, if someone's in there we don't want no trouble. We're just looking for our friend."

I knew who these kind of people were. They'd lie, saying they're friendly, then boom! They'd shoot you in the nose, steal all of your shit, and walk away without a regret. I've seen people do that. 

"We don't want any trouble." Another man repeated the first. "If something happened to our friends, jus' tell us. This place is crawling with corpses; if you can help us not get killed, I'd appreciate it!" 

The building we sat in was quiet, until Rick started to open his mouth to say something to them. I quickly shook my head, placing my index finger on my lips to make him shut up before he said something stupid. 

He hesitated at first, ignoring me completely, then Rick yelled at them. "They drew on us!" 

And that's when all hell broke loose.


	17. Sell My Soul

I started to curse under my breath, shaking my head at Rick. We were almost home free, but he just had to give them some sort of closure, right? That's just how Rick is, and it was a bad thing in this situation. 

Hershel face palmed, glaring at Rick with his teeth gritted because he couldn't yell at him. 

"Are Dave and Tony in there? They alive?" 

Rick paused, debating whether to say something to them or not. I shook my head again, looking to Hershel and Glenn for support on this. Surely they were against him speaking.

"No." He finally yelled, shaking his head sharply. I took a deep breath, ready to just pull my hair out in anger. Dammit, Rick, we were almost out of here.

"They killed Dave and Tony!" Another man yelled at his comrad. I wanted to correct him, saying only Rick did, but that would make me a bad person and throwing Rick under the bus like that wouldn't benefit me in anyway. So I kept my mouth shut, looking to Rick as he thought about what to do next.

"Let's just go!" I whispered, jerking my head towards the back exit. Rick nodded, looking at Glenn and Hershel to see what they thought about the "plan". It might be short notice, but it's the best we got. 

The two men outside started to yell at each other, bickering back and forth about telling someone named Jane that they were shot. After a moment of Rick shaking his head after what he had done, he finally started yelling back at them.

"Your friends drew on us!" He screamed. I placed my hand in his shoulder, staring at his piercing blue eyes with a stern look. 

"Lets. Go. Rick, while they're fighting with eachother." I knitted my eyebrows together, staring at him for a moment before he nodded in agreement.

Before we even had the chance to move, gunshots echoed and the glass behind us shattered into little crystalized pieces, flying all over us. I yelped, diving towards the ground in case they shot again. Rick immediately jumped up, firing off more gunshots towards the men outside.

"Go! Get out of here!" He screamed at the three of us. I held out my pistol, completely scared that I was going to die today, and what would become of my body. Hopefully they'd have the decency to shoot me in the head before I turned, but only time will tell. 

For a moment, it seemed like they had given up on shooting at us. The shots stopped, and all four of us exchanged glances, utterly confused at what was happening at the moment. 

"Hey! We all know this is not gonna end well! There's nothing in it for any of us! You guys just -- just back off, and no one else has to get hurt!"

Rick looked over to Glenn and I, jerking his head towards the back doors that lead to an allyway. "Go." He mouthed, checking through the broken glass to see where the men must have gone. 

Glenn didn't hesitate to run out, whereas I did. I wasn't exactly sure what was happening, or where they were, but Rick narrowed his eyes at me. I took a deep breath, holding the pistol tightly in my hand before following Glenn towards the doors.

He started to peek out, but instead of an ally, he had found a garage filled with beer and glasses (and other assorted items). Glenn continued to walk down the cemented stairs, turning the corner with ease. 

I stepped out behind him, almost knocking over a tray of shot glasses.   
"Jesus Christ, Lilian!" Glenn grabbed his chest as if he were having a heart attack. "You scared the shit out of me -- you don't sneak up on people!" 

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to, really!" I defended myself, watching the doors in front of us as Glenn held the shotgun towards the window. There were shadows outside, and people talking. 

Glenn took a shot, shattering the glass and possibly scaring off the men behind the door. I watched closely as he inched forward quietly. 

Hershel walked up behind us, causing Glenn to point his shotgun at the culprit. Hershel glared at him, pushing the gun away from his chest. "Sorry." Glenn muttered.

"Rick wants you to try for the car." 

"Try?" 

"You'll try, and succeed. Lilian and I will cover you." 

Glenn nodded, rolling his eyes sarcastically before he started to slowly open the doors. Hershel nudged me forward a bit, making me walk outside behind Glenn. 

A man started shooting at us, hitting the garbage can a few times. I ducked behind a cardboard box; it didn't give me much coverage, but that didn't matter as Hershel shot the man in the chest, watching him fall to the ground. He started groaning, screaming in pain as he slowly died. It was an awful sight to see.

"What happened? Where's Glenn and Lilian?" I heard Rick's voice come from inside of the building. I quickly held up my hand to the air, giving the two men a thumbs up before shaking my arm around from side to side.

"I'm not sure where Glenn is-" I paused, looking around behind me to try spotting him. He was nowhere in my vision.

"I'm fine." Glenn croaked, his voice cracking. I sighed in relief, looking over the cardboard box at Rick with a small smile on my face. 

He returned my smile, but it quickly faded as he dove to the ground once gunshots started ringing in the air from behind me. I turned around, looking at the man on top of the roof of a pharmacy building. A sniper. 

"Rick!" I yelled as another shot was fired. A sharp, burning sensation was spreading across my shoulder, which meant he had shot me. The entire world seemed to stop as I stared at my blue jacket, a red color started to stain the letters. "Oh jeeze." I huffed, bringing my hand to touch the wound. 

My touch only made the bullet hole hurt worse than before, and I quickly started to bite down on my lip. Hopefully I wasn't drawing blood faster.

I looked back at the sniper, and towards the car that was pulling up to the pharmacy doors. He started screaming, but the words didn't register in my brain very well. But before I knew it, the sniper was jumping off of the building, landing on the ground with a screech.

"He didn't make it." I whispered to myself, listening to his wails as the man in the car stepped on the gas pedal. He was out of there in seconds, leaving the screaming boy behind.

"Help me! No! No!" 

Before I knew it, Rick was beside me, his eyes widening as he looked to my shoulder. "You're hit." He kept staring at it. I shook my head, waving him off.

"I'm fine. What now?" 

"Hm." Rick mumbled something that I couldn't hear before running off in the direction of the pharmacy. Glenn and Hershel replaced him, looking at me with quizzical stares.

"Where'd he go?" Hershel groaned, looking around the area. I shrugged my shoulders glumly, turning to look at the man who was yelping from before. 

"Walkers!" Glenn yelled at us, standing up to shoot them down. I wobbled slightly, holding up my gun towards them to shoot. I missed the first time, and watched Hershel as he shot the one I was aiming at. 

I shrugged it off, looking to him.  
"The gunfire must've attracted the Walkers." Yeah, no duh. I thought it was the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade going on two blocks away, my bad. 

Hershel, Glenn, and I made a break for the car, questioning eachother on the whereabouts of our leader that ran away minutes before. "He ran across" I pointed sloppily at the pharmacy, Glenn started ushering me towards the doors with Hershel. I rolled my eyes, staring ahead at the man who shot me.

His leg was impaled with a spiky fence, running straight through his knee. Ouch. He was blubbering and wailing for us not to leave him, and just screaming in general. I had a slight hatred for this man, considering my shoulder was bleeding because of him. 

"Rick, we have to go now." Hershel warned him, turning around with his gun held at the Walkers who were closing in on us. I was beside Rick, shooting away at the Roamers. "I'm sorry, son, we have to go." 

"Aw, come on, at least shoot him. There's no reason to leave him here for death by Walkers." I pouted, watching Glenn as he continued to shoot. He nodded his head, not bothering to look at me.

"No, no! Don't leave me, please!" The boy impaled on the fence begged us, clasping his hands together as if he were praying to them. 

The boy looked as if he would shoot a Dead Weight that was tied up with a bb-gun just for fun, because he had nothing to do with his time. A psycho guy, to round it up. 

"We can't just go!" Rick protested, looking for a way around this obstacle. For once, I don't think there was a solution to this one. 

"He was shooting at us! He shot Lilian in the shoulder a few minutes ago!" Glenn yelled, firing at another Walker as if it were nothing. I watched silently, shooting the few that came close to me. I nodded my head at what he said, but I didn't really care at this point what they did.

"He's a kid!" Rick yelled back at him.

"So is Lilian, but she can handle herself enough not to jump off of roofs!" Glenn snapped back. I looked over towards them, raising my eyebrow.

"How old do you guys think I am!?" I rolled my eyes, turning back to face the Roamers. How rude of them to talk about my age as if I weren't even here.

"This place is crawling with Walkers!" Glenn ignored my question completely, yelling at Rick until his voice was almost shot. They all had a knack for getting into arguments all the time, what was it with them?

"The fence went clean through," Hershel piped up between the screams, There's no way we can get the leg off in once piece." 

Rick started shaking the fence, regretting it as the boy screamed again. "Shut up! Shut up or I will shoot you!" 

"Oh my god, make up your mind. Glenn and I are running out of ammo! Hurry it up!" I yelled, taking another shot at a Walker, watching it hit the ground. Rick shot me a glare, which made me shut up. I was kind of scared of him, to be honest.

Hershel pulled Rick aside, explaining that his leg wouldn't be saved unless they cut it off. I would totally pay to see that; as a nurse it would be a great learning experience...among other things. 

"You're a doctor, help him!" Glenn yelled at me. I couldn't help but laugh, realizing that Daryl had told them about what I went to college for. I shook my head at him, firing another bullet.

"I only went for five years to be a nurse, Glenn. I don't exactly have the medical tools, either! What do you want me to do!?" 

"Can't you take the leg off?" Glenn asked, reloading as he spoke to me. This sparked an idea in my head, and I quickly turned around to face Rick and Hershel.

"Do you have something sharp? Something like a, a hatchet or-"

"We have one in the car." Glenn nodded, looking to Rick who agreed reluctantly. 

"No! No, no, no don't - don't cut my leg off, please! Please, not my leg." The boy started screaming. Rick thought for a moment, pulling out a pocket knife, looking to me. 

"Will this cut through the bone?" He asked. I waved my hand, nodding finally. 

"It might. I'll have to cut the ligaments below the kneecap, and cut above the tibia. He's going to lose his leg." I nodded my head, snatching the knife from Rick's grasp. Before I did anything, I took off my jacket as another way to stop the bleeding from his leg, a substitute for gauze. 

"When we get out of here, we're gonna have to find something to cauterize the leg so he doesn't like, bleed out and die." I explained to Rick who nodded thoroughly. I passed my gun over to Hershel, pointing at the Walkers. "Cover me while I work on this. Rick, you're strong? Hold him down so I don't fuck up." 

"Yes, ma'am." Rick muttered under his breath, holding down the boy while I held the knife tightly in my hands, looking at the boy sorrowfully.

"Whatever you do, don't scream or I'll cut your entire torso off " I warned, placing the knife on his kneecap. 

"Shut up!" Rick whispered angrily, closing the boy's mouth with his hand to make him stop yelling. Glenn started firing off gunshots as more Roamers started flooding the area. Rick let go of the boy, firing bullets in front of us at the Walkers.  
"Hurry up, Lilian!" He screamed.

"Shut up for a minute." I was looking around his leg for the nerves, but it was too dark to see anything useful. Blood was everywhere, dripping from the trashcan he was on, and down to my jeans and shoes. I carefully started to cut his leg until Rick started yelling at me.

"We have to go, now. There's no time for this! Walkers are everywhere!" Rick yelled, firing off bullets again, looking to me. I jerked my hand backwards to avoid cutting anywhere besides the spot I was supposed to, looking at Rick.

"What do you want me to do then! I can't do the procedure here, he's lost too much blood and I can't be rushed!" I was screaming back, attracting more Walkers than before. Rick grunted, setting his gun down on the trashcan beside me. I didn't know what he was planning on doing, but I'm not sure I liked it.

In a moment, Rick held onto the boy's leg tightly, taking a deep breath before bringing his leg upward, his leg making a crunching noise as it was pulled from the spiked fence. 

It was quite a sight to see, considering it was gushing blood once again, but even even more this time. I finally regained my voice after a moment of staring at the blood rushing from the boy's leg. 

"You need to get him into the car without jostling him too much - he might lose a lot of blood if you do." I tied the jacket's sleeves off quickly, handing him off to Rick. "Glenn can you help?" 

"What happened to him!?" Glenn yelled, throwing his shotgun at me so he could lend Rick a hand. I started firing off bullets, sighing with a smile.

"He passed out, calm down. Just get him in the car." 

"It's not as easy as that! It'd be easier if he could walk!" Glenn yelled at me. I felt somewhat offended, but shoved it away as an act of hatred adrenaline coming from him. 

"Ugh, just do it quickly!" 

Glenn and Rick picked the boy up by his waist and arms, slowly trudging towards the car. Hershel and I followed close behind them, firing at any Roamers who decided to get too close. I ran ahead, opening the back door and hopping in, waiting for them to set the boy in here. 

Glenn almost fell down, but regained his balance and they practically threw the boy into the back seat beside me. Glenn, Hershel, and Rick opened the doors, dodging Walkers just in time. 

"Let's go, Rick." Hershel sighed. I turned my attention away from them and down at the boy. He was loosing quite a lot of blood as is, and if I didn't do something now, he might die of blood loss.

"Here," Hershel started taking off his coat, lending it to me. I silently thanked him and tore my jacket off of his leg, tying the white shirt that was already red-stained tightly. That's the best I could do without tools of any kind. 

<><><><>

"How is he?" Rick asked, looking at me through the rear-view mirror above his head. I shrugged my left shoulder, taking a note of the pain in my right. The blood was already soaking though my t-shirt now, which made me all kinds of pissed. I loved this shirt. 

"He's just...there. We need to hurry, please. He's already lost a lot of blood." 

Rick nodded, speeding up to eighty, which was kind of a mistake considering that it was bumpy. I couldn't ask him to slow down, though, because I had already asked too much of him and the others. 

We were getting near the farm now, and since we were on dirt road, it made the boy bounce around a bit. Why should I be worrying about the guy who shot me in the arm? Well, I think that it was sort of a payback when he fell on the fence, so I suppose the score is set at 1 to 1.

"Hershel, you have a clothes iron?" I asked suddenly, striking an idea with a match in my mind. He nodded suspiciously, narrowing his eyes at me.

"Why?"

"How else am I gonna cauterize the wound? We just need to drug him, and do it that way. I've seen loads of people do it!" I brushed the hair from the boy's eyes and stared at him for a moment. Glenn scoffed.

"Are you seriously going to - isn't that what Merle did!?" Glenn turned his gaze at Rick, who nodded with a small grin. "If it worked for him..."

"Yeah, Daryl told me you handcuffed him to that roof. Said you went back for 'em, though." I recalled the first night I was here, when Daryl and I had started talking for a long time. 

Rick nodded his head, the grin fading away. "I'm not sure where that crazy bastard went..." he muttered.

"Do I have your permission to use your iron?" I looked to Hershel. He didn't answer, but nodded his head while rolling his eyes. "Thanks." 

The farm was in our view now, and I felt giddy with excitement as we got closer down the road. I could see that Shane, Andrea, T-Dog and Daryl were surrounding the green car Shane and I rode in after shooting practice. I was somewhat worried as to what they were up to.

Rick pulled up to the front of the house, stopping the car completely, opening the driver door to get out and help me carry the boy into a room.

"Use the left, upstairs room. It's the same one we used for Carl." Hershel started rolling up his sleeves to help me.

"Where the hell were you!?" Shane walked up behind us. "What the hell are you doing!?" 

"Please, not now." Rick waved him off, looking around for his wife and child to greet them. Shane just got even more mad at this, and looked to me.

"What the hell is this?" He started blowing up on me about the blood on my clothing, and the boy in the backseat. I finally had enough of it, so I decided to yell back at him.

"Oh my god, Shane, just shut the fuck up for five minutes! If you're gonna scream at me for nothing, at least help me get this guy into a room, he's losing a lot of blood and I don't need you up my ass while I'm trying to do surgery. Help out or leave me the hell alone." 

He stopped talking, looking to Rick for guidance. I ignored everyone who was staring at me, bewildered, and picked up the boy's arms, looking to Glenn.

"Can you help me?" I asked. Glenn nodded, grabbing onto his other arm to help prop him upward so we could get him into the house and onto the bed. 

"Patricia, get the IV and some clean sheets. Possibly morphine and a clothing iron." Hershel ordered, watching the confused woman run back inside.

"Why don't you go help Beth; I can do this." I smiled at Hershel. He nodded gratefully, disappearing down the hallway. Great, now it's up to me to get this guy back into full health.

I've only done this procedure once, on a women who's leg was shot off by her father. It was awful, but I got it done that time, so it shouldn't be that different. Right?


	18. It's Not Over

Granted, I had no official medical tools that were mechanical, but I had to make do with what Hershel gave me. I was really surprised that he actually had Morphine with his kit, but I didn't complain.

I had asked Patricia for a few things she couldn't provide, so I had to do the surgery without any clean sheets, so I used what they had left of gauze on his leg. I offered to go on a run with Daryl soon to stock up on supplies we had ran out of, and then some.

I had learned the boy's name was Randall, but that's all he said before passing out again. He actually said "Randy-ull", so I just guessed and went with it.

Shane was pissed off at me, but what else was new? He didn't like me because I yelled at him like that, but it's what he deserves for butting in on everyone's business, especially mine. I barely knew that guy, he had absolutely no right to do that! 

Rick said that it wasn't my place to yell at him, but he thought it was kind of funny the way Shane was surprised. I told him I didn't like Shane, to which me replied, "I won't hold it against you." 

Beth wasn't really getting better. She hasn't eaten in a day, and she's too dehydrated. She's still in shock, Hershel had told me. I felt kind of sad; she seemed like a nice girl that didn't deserve that.

After stitching up what was left of Randall's let leg, he was still unconscious due to the morphine and burning of his flesh that woke him up for three minutes until he passed out again. I felt bad for the kid, considering everyone at the camp hates him. 

I get it, he shot at us, but truth be told how many times have we shot at people for our own benefit? He was just doing what those other men told him to do. Who knows, maybe he didn't want to be apart of that? I know what I said about him before; about being a psycho, but looks can be deceiving. 

I thought that Logan was this puny, weak nerd who couldn't stand up for himself, and look what he did! He stole the van. 

Hershel was cleaning out my bullet wound, stitching that up, too. There was no way I could do that to myself under any circumstances, so I asked if he could do it for me. I had to wrap a towel around my stomach, considering my shirt was blocking the way. So I had to, awkwardly, take it off so Hershel could clean me up and bangage it.

I'm just lucky that no one else walked in, or that Randall didn't wake up while I had no shirt on. It was already completely awkward for Hershel, which I felt bad about for some reason.

He didn't seem to care, though. He just stitched me up and asked Maggie to bring me one of her tank tops to wear considering my shirt had Randall's leg blood all over it. 

"How's he doing?" Maggie asked as she handed me a purple shirt. I thanked her kindly, looking back to the boy asleep on the bed. I shrugged stiffly, throwing on the shirt she had given me and sighed.

"I'm not sure, actually. Hershel said I did everything right, but he hasn't woken up. He's breathing, though; I know that for a fact." I watched his stomach as it rose up and down simultaneously, which showed me that his breathing was completely fine. Maggie patted my back a bit, smiling.

"Only time will tell, Lillian. You can't beat yourself up; he looks perfectly fine." 

I nodded at her words, realizing there was nothing else I could do besides wait for him to wake up, or for his breathing to stop.

"Sorry about the iron." I said after we had stopped talking. Maggie forced a laugh, shaking her head.

"Don't worry about it. I'm not so sure we'll need any unwrinkled clothes now, anyway, so as long as it saved someone's life...probably." she tucked her bottom lip between her teeth and took a deep breath before sitting on the chair I had brought in earlier. 

"How's Beth?" 

"Not very good. She doesn't seem to want to come back to us. It's like she's forcing herself to stay unconscious." Maggie's eyes were watering, and she was on the verge of letting her tears fall. I wasn't sure if it was awkward to hug her or not, so I just went for it and wrapped my arms around her, no matter how much my shoulder stung. 

She hugged me back, smiling as we let go of eachother. "She'll be alright; Beth is tough, she can make it." I squeezed her shoulder lovingly, trying to boost her hopes up high. This could backfire on me, but I had to take that chance so Maggie won't lose her faith in Beth. 

"Are you hungry? You haven't eaten anything all day, you've been in here." 

"It's fine, I can get something later." I smiled at her offer, shaking my head though. Maggie wouldn't take "no" for an answer, so she just laughed instead.

"I'll fix you something." She walked away towards the door, waving at me before I had a chance to object. She was as stubborn as her father, I'll give her that at least. 

~*~ 

Randall hasn't moved in the past two hours, and I was starting to worry if what I had done was enough. Maybe I just made things worse, which wasn't a good chance considering I stopped the bleeding, though. But maybe using an iron to close of his wound wasn't the best idea. I'm sure Hershel had another plan, but he had said mine would take less time and to go ahead and do it.

Rick came in about forty minutes ago; he wanted to thank me for going along to help, even if I did get shot in the process. We talked for a while about what procedure I had done, how I stopped the bleeding, and so on. 

I wasn't in the mood to talk, though, but I felt as if I needed to say something to him. Rick has done so much for everyone, and I felt that if I were to order him to leave it'd break him somehow. Not that my opinion mattered to him, but I didn't want him thinking any less of me.

So he left after we talked for about fifteen minutes, give or take a few. I couldn't help but feel that I could have done more at the bar. I shouldn't have said the things I did, the sarcastic words, and helped out a lot more instead of zoning out while being shot at. 

Nobody seemed to notice that I was in Lala Land the entire time I sat in here, staring at Randall until he moved even a slight inch. They would talk to me, say the cliché things such as "you did your best." Or "there's nothing more you can do." 

I was getting tired of it, but I wasn't going to say that aloud, so I just sat and listened while they spoke. Glenn thanked me for helping shoot, which I didn't do much of. I told him I wasn't to be thanked, but he had said otherwise. 

Lori came in, for once, and thanked me for looking out for her husband. I told her it was the opposite; that he saved my life more times than I could count in the week I've been here. She thought that was funny, and patted my back awkwardly. 

Daryl came in finally and just sat with me. He was the only one beside Dale that I could sit in a comfortable silence with. Maybe it was the fact that we haven't talked as much, but whatever it was I didn't mind at all.

I told him what had happened; everything expect for the part where I got shot in the shoulder. He would beat someone, possibly Randall, and I didn't want that. Not after today. I just wanted to sit in silence and curl up in bed to sleep for fifteen years at once. I'd be happy with an hour, to say the least. Soon he left me, saying he was going on a run to the clinic with Shane. 

I didn't like the idea of that, but you try telling Daryl Dixon he can't do something he already intended on doing. It's like going in a complete circle; nothing will get done. 

My shoulder was hurting worse than before from moving too much, hugging people and raising my arm to plug the IV back into Randall's wrist if it fell out. He still wasn't moving, but he seemed perfectly fine. 

I could hear an argument going on downstairs, to which caught my attention as it was quiet in the room. The voices carried through the house like a current, picking up on my eardrums.

"We couldn't just leave him! He would've bled out, if he lived that long." Rick was explaining to the group of people gathered around the table in the dining room. I stood up from where I sat, and clumsily made my way downstairs to see what they were discussing. 

"What do we do with him?" Andrea had asked, clearly confused as to why we brought him back here in the first place. I sat down in the middle of the stairs and listened in on their conversation. Eves-dropping was my specialty. 

"He doesn't have a left leg, now. You can't exactly leave him on his own hopping around." T-Dog butted in, earning a few nods from around the table. Were they seriously discussing this now? We just got back a few hours ago, why can't they just wait and see until he wakes up for his side of the story?

"Even if you let him go, he knows we're here, Rick. What if he brings back those men?" Shane was arguing again. That guy needed to take a few chill-pills and calm down already.

"He was unconscious the whole way here, how's he gonna figure it out?" Rick snapped back at the man across from him. I didn't like where this argument was going, now.

"You killed three of their men, took one hostage, and you think they ain't comin' to look for him?" 

"Those men left him for dead, they're not gonna look for that kid, Shane. He was as good as dead; Lillian at least saved his life. The leg was no good anyway." Rick had started to raise his voice loud enough for anyone in the vicinity to hear him. 

I tensed up at the sound of my name, but continued to listen to the group argue with one another. That seemed to be all they did nowadays. Maybe it was my fault?

"Maybe we should be blaming her for saving that prick's life!" Shane yelled, at Rick of course. I could hear mumbles of various people, but I couldn't quite hear what they had said to eachother.

"Don't you go blamin' her for stupid shit like that." Daryl yelled back, making me smile at his words. He always did stand up for me, even back then. The room fell silent until Rick decided to break the tension.

"Let's just calm down. Now, if we're gonna be talking about sending him away, we can't just leave him out there like that. He'll have no chance at surviving with that handicap." 

"So, so what are we supposed to do then? Buy him flowers and candy till he tells us what up? Rick, you have people you need to be protecting and if this guy is a threat-" I decided to speak up for the boy, considering he had no say right now, and cut Shane off of his sentence before he had the chance to finish it. 

"He's not, Shane." I stepped off of the stairs, turning the corner to find that everyone in the room was staring at me. "Can we all just, just consider what he might be feeling? He lost his leg, and now you want to send him away without his side of the story?" 

"Lillian, he could be a threat to us. Those, those men could come back." Shane was trying his best not to blow up on me, I could see it in the redness of his face. I suppose he was still mad at me for what I had said to him earlier today.

"We could keep him in the shed." Andrea suggested, crossing her arms after looking towards me. I was completely shocked at the fact she would even consider keeping a human being in a filthy, disease ridden shed as if he were some animal being tested on at a lab. 

All eyes looked to me as she said that, as if I were the one making the decision. I instantly shook my head, ready to protest until Rick raised his voice.

"Were not keeping anyone in that shed." 

"I think that's our best option." Shane nodded in agreement to what Andrea proposed. I turned to Rick, shaking my head again.

"Just so he can die of hypothermia or something? Dehydration? He hasn't even woken up yet, Shane. Do you expect me to fix him up in that shed?" My body was shaking, which always happened when I was deep within an argument that resulted in yelling at someone. I guess it was just the adrenaline that was rushing though me. 

"I think Shane has a point. If he wakes up and no one's there," Why was it Andrea's mission to make me feel stupid, and to praise Shane as if he were a god? The only good thing he's done is...well, nothing for me. 

"I'll watch him, then. I have to monitor his breathing anyway, until he wakes up." I volunteered myself, narrowing my eyes at the ground. It seemed like they wanted to kill him just for the fun of it. 

Rick nodded, smiling at me slightly to let me know he was on my side. I always knew that being nice to him would pay off.

The truth is, if they just killed him it wouldn't make as much sense as they thought it did. I already used what was left of the bandages and most of the antibiotics, so unless they don't mind me using it on a dead man, why would they waste the supplies? I didn't want to end his life, because I'm an optimist and see the best of people. Lately I'm beginning to lose my optimistic state, and retreat to a pessimistic one. 

"I don't want you around that guy." Daryl angrily whispered at me, glaring. I gave him a caring smile before looking to Rick.

"I'll be fine. He's not going to hurt me, I can just knock him out with more morphine if I have to." 

"Then I suppose that it's settled? If she's the only one who believes she can stand to be around him, I'll give her that." Rick patted my back and turned towards Shane. "You gonna object? Would you like to do it yourself?" 

"Man, you know what - no." Shane grunted, shaking his head before turning to leave. "It ain't my fault if she gets stabbed by that guy, I'll tell you what." And that was the end of that argument.

I feel like we all got somewhere in life today, whether it was the fact they hated me a lot more, or if they though I was even more crazy. What ever it was, I knew that I accomplished something. Even if it costed my "friendship" with Shane. 

<><><>

It was the afternoon, around 7 o'clock, and I was still watching over Randall. He hasn't woken up, but that wasn't new. Rick came in for a while, told me he'd take watch on him for an hour or two so I could get washed up. 

I didn't even realize I still had dry blood on my hands and on my jeans from this morning, I was too busy talking to everyone. 

"Go get some air, change into some fresh clothes, I'll watch him for a few hours." He ordered politely, sitting next to me on the wooden dresser-bench that was in the corner. At first I objected; I didn't want to give Rick this burden, but then he said I've been in this room for like, 10 hours straight, so I finally nodded.

I did put on new clothing. Nothing special, I just switched off my pants because Maggie's tank top was perfectly fine for me and it was practically clean. 

Right now I was walking around the camp, searching for Dale to find out his opinion on this; I didn't see him in the kitchen earlier so I was wondering how he was. If I happened to run across Daryl, so be it. 

"How is he?" Dale was sitting on top of the RV, a sniper in his hands and a small sunburn on his forehead. I sat down in a lawn chair just in front of the vehicle and looked up at him.

"He won't wake up. He's, he's still breathing, but I know he will. There's not a reason why he wouldn't." I felt oddly comfortable pouring out everything to Dale; he was like a wise witch doctor you'd find in those small secluded tribes around the world; he knows all and sees all. 

"I'm sure you did a great job. Rick said you were in there all day, it's had to count for something." 

I nodded, but there was only a small chance that doubting myself was part of the package. I'm sure he was just unconscious; the man did lose his leg and was forcefully burned to close the wound. Not just anyone can bounce back from that.

The ladder that led to the top of the RV was a bit rickety as I climbed on it, but I didn't mind much. If I fell, I fell. There was a small space beside Dale, so I sat in front of him, legs crossed and very attentive. 

"Do you think that uhm, that he should have to be excluded?" I asked, looking towards the ground in asked haste to avoid his stare. Dale sighed, setting the gun in his lap and looking at me directly.

"The kid has no leg, now. He can't make it on his own out there. He'll have to have some sort of help; Rick isn't that cruel. It's Shane who you should watch over, he'll stop at nothing to persuade Rick into believing what he needs him to. Hell, he made everyone believe the Otis story." 

"Otis story? You mean, the man who shot Carl?" I was finally given the chance to hear this tale that I've ever-so-wanted to hear for the past week, but I haven't had the guts to tell him I wanted to hear it.

Dale nodded, turning his head every which way to look for signs of anyone. The only one around was Glenn, who was passing out more peaches and such. I looked to Dale and started to bite my bottom lip, waiting for him to start.

"It was all a setup..."


	19. Another Way Out

After Dale had finished his story, we sat in silence for the longest of moments. I didn't know what to say - how could I? 

Dale had just told me that Shane killed someone, someone that had worth, in cold blood to save himself and Carl. That was anything but heroic, if you ask me. I realize he gave a life to save a life, but holy shit! How could he live with the guilt of knowing he had killed Otis?

But then again, Dale wasn't there with him, so how would he know what happened? Was he just guessing, or did he know something I didn't?

I decided not to ask him, considering I didn't want to start anything between the witch doctor and myself, so I thanked him and stepped off of the RV to check up on everyone.

Hershel was tinkering with some wood when I walked into the house. He looked to me and motioned for my presence. I wandered over there and sat beside him on the sofa.

"If that boy is going to make it, he needs some sort of prosthetic. Can you run to town and get me some more supplies? If it's not too much trouble."

"You're making a prosthetic leg for him?" I asked, looking at the wood on the table. It didn't look like a leg, to say the least. "That's really cool."

"Well, I need to occupy myself now. Beth hasn't been doing well, I'm afraid, and I need to do something to keep my mind off of her."

"I see. I'm sorry. I'm sure she'll get better, no need to worry." I patted his shoulder awkwardly and stood up.

"Just give me a list of what you need, and I'll find someone to go with me."

Hershel began to write on a post-it note before handing it to me. I smiled and walked away to find Rick.

He was beside the cars, discussing something with Andrea, Shane, Carol, and T-Dog. I waltzed over and smiled.

"Is anyone not busy? Hershel wanted me to go to town, and I don't want to go by myself."

"We kinda are. Lillian, can I ask you something?" Rick looked away from the rest of the group. I shrugged.

"Sure."

"That kid, if he wakes up, what do you suppose we do with him?"

I thought for a moment, trying to make something up before time ran out.

"I - maybe we could just take him far away? Or keep him around. Hershel wants me to help make a prosthetic leg for the kid, that's why I'm going to town. I need someone's help."

"I'll go with her." Shane stepped up, finishing the granola bar in his hand. I wasn't too excited about that, but I doubted anyone else would want to go with me. I was a delight to be around.

"We can talk after you get back. I need to think of something." Rick nodded.

Shane and I walked away to a car, not bothering to speak until we drove away.

"Why are you sticking up for that kid?" Shane asked, picking at his teeth without looking at me. I rolled my eyes.

"I want to hear his side of the story. I just think we need to wait until he wakes up-"

"You don't think those guys will come after him? You practically took one of their men hostage." He scoffed at me. It took all I had not to blow up on him that time.

I didn't know how I felt about Shane. He seemed okay, but at times he can be the biggest asshole you've ever met, which was always. 

"Like Rick said, those guys left him for dead. If you'd just trust me a bit..."

"Trust you? It's gettin' pretty hard to do that now, especially after you lied for Dale! I've tried my best, and you keep pushing it."

My temper became just as bad as his that time. I started to yell as he drove faster down empty highway, dodging my questions again. 

"I push it? That stunt you pulled at the barn was fucked up, okay? We could've talked to Hershel, then I got punched, but I had to go to that stupid bar and talk him into coming back. I got shot in the shoulder, that was your fault!"

"I didn't shoot you! And what else was I supposed to do? We were living by walkers. You should thank me."

"Thank you?" I shook my head at his remark. "It's practically your fault Randall is here in the first place. Or that Beth is dying. You killed her mother."

"Her mother was already dead, I put down the Walker. That's all I did."

"Because nothing is ever your fault, is it?" I couldn't help but laugh, considering it was true. 

"Why don't I just drop you off on the side of the road? Kill you, make it look like an accident." He muttered a threat, looking to me.

"Like you killed Otis?"

He stopped driving and pulled over onto the side of the road and turned to me. Shane glared.

"Who told you about Otis? Dale? And you think you can trust him?" He asked, clearly shaken up at what I was accusing him of. I shrugged. 

"Rumor has it that you killed him to save yourself."

"You don't know what you're talking about. You better mind your own damn business, Lillian."

"What other secrets are you hiding?"

"Secrets I'm hiding? Last I checked, you're the one who has a hard time sharing information." 

"I did that for the group, I thought I was doing something right for a change! It's more than you did!"

He rolled his eyes, biting down in his lip in pure anger.

"If it weren't for me, what I did, your little boyfriend would be out risking his life for a dead girl!"

He was right though. As much as I hated to admit it. If it weren't for his stupid stunt, Daryl would be out and about looking for nothing.

"He's not my boyfriend." I snapped. "You're being an asshole, and I really think that what you did was wrong."

"I don't give a shit what you think. You get that? This whole time, this past week or so, you've been nothing but a complete pain in my ass."

"Ditto, asshole."

I paused, crossing my arms. He was being a complete tool, feeling too righteous about himself, as if he could do no harm to anyone. Even though he threatened me minutes before.

Shane whispered something I didn't hear, making me self conscious for no reason. We were back on the road by then, but I still had sarcastic remarks up my sleeve that I wanted to use.

"Why'd you even agree to go with me?" I mumbled under my breath, to which Shane laughed sarcastically.

"I don't trust you very much, so what better way to earn that than to keep an eye on you."

"Wow, thank you so much. I appreciate you keeping tabs on me, but I'm a big girl."

"How old are you anyway? Rick was sayin' you tried to drink with Hershel when he was at the bar."

Thanks, Rick, for shoving me under the bus. That's exactly what I needed; for Shane to think I was a reckless drunken pest.

"Twenty-nine, if it's any of your business." I crossed my arms and looked away from him. Shane was chuckling, which I could hear perfectly. "Let's just go get the stuff and leave. Take a right up here." I pointed toward the street sign, making eye contact with him.

"Yes ma'am."

~*~

The hardware store was almost completely empty, except for the storage room behind the clerk desk. It was locked, of course, so we were searching for a key to get in.

It was our only hope to get the supplies so we could leave. I was tired of being around Shane, even an hour was too long for me.

I was searching under the cabinet, hoping it has been kicked underneath or something. But, no luck.

"Now what do we do?" I asked, placing my hands on my hips before looking to him, clearly fed up with this run.

"Well, I'm not so sure. Just keep looking and I'll think of something." He was looking around the store, trying to find anything that could be of use to us.

"How about a hammer?"

"Huh? What the hell are we suppos' to do with that?" Shane brushed me off, turning away from me. 

I strolled over to the locked door and began to beat on the handle with my hammer I had found. Shane was glaring at me, cussing under his breath as it began to come loose from its socket. 

The knob broke off after my tenth hit, and the door creaked open spookily. Shane clasped his hands together and nodded.

"Pretty smart." He opened the door completely and began to pluck items from the shelves. There wasn't much in there, either, but it has enough supplies for us to not come back empty handed.

I smiled triumphantly at his words, knowing I had some something good then.

As we were packing items up into our backpacks, a decaying hand grabbed onto my hair, pulling me backwards. I started to flail and scream, calling out for Shane.

He turned to me, dropping his backpack swiftly. I was pulled to the ground by the oversized Walker, and I could hear a crunching noise as it chomped its teeth down, getting closer toward my face.

"Move your head!" Shane yelled at me, to which I obliged and tried to pull away from the Walker. She was still biting down on her own teeth, inches from my neck.

He swung a hatchet downward, planting it into the Walker's decomposing face. She let go of my hair, laying on the ground. Her brain was bleeding out onto the floor, and I looked to Shane.

"Holy shit."

"I thought we checked every room?" I asked him.

Shane looked down at the rancid body and sighed, turning his gaze up to me. I was breathing hard, my heart was beating a hundred times a second, it felt like.

"Thank you." I finally said. Shane nodded his head and picked up the backpack on the floor beside his feet.

"Yeah, don't mention it. Let's just get back." He was walking away towards the front doors. I nodded and pocled up my bag, following him to the car.

"That was pretty badass." I grinned.

Shane stopped walking and pointed toward me, a serious face was planted on his own; he seemed very annoyed that he had to save me. But, I'm glad he did.

"You should cut your hair. It makes you vulnerable, easier to grab."

"I love my long hair, though."

"Do you want to get bit?" He asked sternly. "What if I wasn't there to save you? Then what?"

"You need to calm down, you're out of control. I'll see what I can do when we get back to the farm, alright? Here I thought we were having another sentimental moment, but no." I raised my hands up in defense, pushing passed him to get to the car.

Shane rubbed his forehead and sighed. "I'm sorry. I just...what the hell would I tell Daryl? He'd wring my neck of I told him you died under my supervision. I don't want this to be like Otis-"

"You see, that's the thing. You saved me, and from what I've heard you have a hard time doin' that for people. So, thanks." I opened the passenger door and jerked my head. "Let's go. Hopefully Randall is awake so I can talk to him."

Shane nodded, and got in the driver's seat, not bothering to buckle his seatbelt. I had a feeling I should correct him, but left it alone. I, on the other hand, was scared of his driving, so I put my own on.

Then we were off towards the farm again, bags full of hammers and nails that we stole and almost died for.

It was weird. We had been fighting, but quickly got over it and moved on. That was one of the good things about our weird relationship.


	20. Drag Me Down

When we got back to the farm, Shane and I were greeted by Rick and T-Dog, who had some good news for me in particular.

"Randall woke up." Rick didn't seem happy about that, which confused me. Shane followed me in the house as I walked up the stairs and into the room he was in.

The bedroom was trashed. A vase was smashed on the ground, and medical equipment was on the floor beside the bed. Randall was frantic, asking where he was and who I am.

I sat down on the desk across the room from him and smiled.

"I'm Lillian. You're at our camp, do you remember anything?" I asked, crossing my legs where I sat.

Randall nodded slowly and began to wince. "What happened to my leg?"

"You fell on that fence. The nerves below your kneecap were damaged, so I took it off and patched you up."

He stared down at his amputated leg, reaching over to touch the bandages that were wrapped around it. Shane crossed his arms and looked at me. 

"Pretty damn lucky, kid." He huffed, annoyed at the silence in the room. "She almost died trying to get you supplies for that."

"Thank you." Randall looked around the messy room, then to me. "I'm sorry. I thought y'all were gonna kill me or somethin'."

"Boy, do you even remember what happened? You shot her, right in the shoulder."

"I was just doin' what those guys told me to do! Honest! They took me in, y'know? You guys killed a lot of our men, how many of you came out alive?" Randall glared at Shane, who started right back. 

"Shane, maybe you should leave. Just stay outside the door, I'll holler if I need you." I whispered to him. He seemed reluctant, but finally began to walk away. 

"You're lucky Rick is a good guy." I didn't bother to look at him. "He wouldn't leave you there. Not sure why." 

"I thought he was gonna shoot me."

"Can I ask you some questions?"

"Sure."

"Why were you guys there at the bar, anyway?"

Randall sat up on the bed and shrugged his shoulders loosely. "Scoutin'. Scavengin'. Dave and Tony left us and went to go get a drink. I knew it was a bad idea..."

"So when you realized Rick had killed Dave and Tony, what happened?"

"That guy you were talkin' to, at the bar, he was mad. Tony was his brother, you see. And he ordered everyone around, said he'd kill me if I didn't do what he said. I-I jus' didn't want to die, right? I tried to miss while shooting, I swear!"

There was a knock in the door, which tore my stare away from Randall. It suddenly busted open, hitting the wall with a great force.

"What the hell is goin' on in here!?"

It was Daryl, and he was mad. He quickly pushed me aside and started to yell at Randall, as if he were the enemy here.

"What have you been sayin' to her?"

"N-nothin'! I swear, I just-"

Daryl pointed a gun at Randall's face and grabbed onto his shoulder. I was panicking, trying to pull the two apart as I screamed at Daryl to leave him alone.

He was cussing, pulling Randall away from the bed and down the stairs. Rick and Shane were following him down the stairs, trying to reason with the man. Randall was scared, and I didn't blame him.

"Daryl, stop it! Put him down!"

"Leave him alone!"

I ran out the door as Daryl threw him off the porch and began to beat him, sitting on top of him as he punched his face multiple times.

Shane was grabbing his arms, pulling them backward to restrain Daryl.

Randall held his arms in front of his face in defense, closing his eyes tightly as the punches kept rolling in, one after the other.

Finally, Rick and Shane somehow managed to pull Daryl off of the poor, defenseless boy. They were discussing consequences that he had to face now, considering the situation that was arising.

"Damn, man." Randall whined, and looked to me as if this were my fault. "The hell did I do?"

"Shut up," Rick ordered, picking Randall up from the ground. He looked to me, then to Daryl and Shane.

"What the hell is going on out here!?" Hershel yelled at us, holding the prosthetic leg in his hand, and a screwdriver in the other. Our heads turned, and I gave a small smile.

"Well, uh, you see-"

"This piece of shit shouldn't even be here! Why don't you just throw him out to the Walkers?"

"That may not be a bad idea..." Shane butted in with his opinion. I shook my head.

"Uh, dude, no!" I raised my hands up. "He literally can't walk."

"That's why I've made this," Hershel walked over toward us. Randall flinched as he grabbed onto his leg, trying to tighten the clamps and bandages so the prosthetic would fit better.

I looked to Daryl as Hershel fixed the leg; I was pissed off to the max at him. I could handle myself, and Randall couldn't hurt me even if he tried, so whats the problem?

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Don't give me that shit! I don't want this dirtbag anywhere near you, ya' hear me."

"Daryl, stop acting like you're my babysitter! Im a grown woman, I don't need this. He's my patient, and you just reopened his stitches a bit."

"Oh, boo-hoo." He scoffed at my whining and pointed his finger at me. "This guy doesn't need this pity. He and his group are bad people. While you were gone your buddy here told me a little story."

I stopped my pacing and raised an eyebrow at what Daryl had just said to me. I was curious to know what it was, but I was still furious at him.

"What do you mean?"

"This little shit is in a group of rapists, and killers. They come up here tryin' to look for him, the men'll be dead and women'll wish they were."

"Randall?" I gasped loudly and turned to him. He defended himself and stuttered, trying to speek clearly.

"N-n-no, it's not like that. Not all of the Mercenaries are bad, just...Dave and Tony were only two of them. I never touched those girls, I swear. They tried to make me, but-but-but I walked away back to the truck. They didn't even kill 'em afterwards! I didn't go on any runs after that, but this guy, uh, uh, people call him Scout, he made me. He said he'd hurt my sister."

"Mercenaries?" I croaked, trying to understand what the hell he was talking about.

"Yeah, thats what they call themselves. This guy, the main guy, told 'em if they got into any trouble to call for uh, backup. I was apart of that."

I walked away from the bunch of people who had gathered around us and sat down on the porch steps, tapping my foot in the wood anxiously. I didn't really know what to do, or say. Everyone was probably expecting me to say something, so I looked to Shane and sighed quietly. 

"When Hershel's done, take Randall to the shed. We need to talk."


	21. All We Knew

I watched Randall hobble away on his new wooden leg with Shane as they walked toward the shed, beside where the barn was. We had closed the gates to that up once more, Hershel's wishes considering the odor was far too foul and could be smelled across the farm.

Rick and Daryl sat on the porch with me, watching the same view as I did. We were silent, listening to Randall cry as he asked what he did to be out there. I just needed to think about what he had said for a while.

To be honest, I didn't know what to think about it. He said he didn't rape those girls, but how could I believe that?

That's the thing; I couldn't. 

Shane locked the shed door behind him, turning back toward the house as he quickened his pace. I stared at the dying grass on the ground that had been stepped on by multiple feet over the years, until Rick nudged my shoulder slightly.

"What did you want to talk about? We're all here now."

I nodded and got off of my ass, standing up straight. Rick, Daryl, and Shane all stared with ceased breaths.

"I don't want to keep him here."

"What did I tell ya', sweetheart?" Shane grinned smugly, crossing his arms together. I rolled my eyes at him.

"That was before he said he witnessed something like that. Don't pin this on me, I was just trying to help!"

"Well, look where that got ya'. We wasted medical supplies on a sack of shit, didn't we?" 

"Hell yeah, we did." Daryl agreed with Shane. He leaned against the porch frame and shrugged as we locked eyes. I shot daggers at him, then took a deep breath.

"I propose that we send him far away from here. Like, twenty miles? Maybe?" 

"If we can all agree on that, I'm fine with it." Rick nodded his head and looked to the others for their answers. They both disagreed with our plan.

"I say we kill the bastard. Lord knows what else he did." Shane said, which Daryl nodded.

"And if those people come back and realize he's dead? That we killed him? We could just send him on his way, bye-bye, easy peasy." I rested my arm on the railing and waited for other options. "Great, then it's settled."

"I think we need a third vote, to even things out." Rick suggested, looking around the camp for an unsuspecting person to endure for a questionnaire.

Everyone else was inside, besides Dale, who was sitting on top of the RV as he always did. I smiled, looking to the three men in front of me.

"Dale seems good enough."

"I don't know..." Rick was reluctant, until I started walking toward the RV before he could say anything else about it to me.

"Heyo, Dale! Do ya' got a second?" I yelled, catching his attention. He waved at me, setting the sniper rifle down on the roof. 

"I always have time nowadays. What's the matter?"

"Rick, Shane, Daryl and I are trying to decide the fate of Randall, that guy in the shed. And we want you to be the even vote. I say we set him free far away from here, so we don't have to kill him, or we could kill him. Have an execution in the barn."

"Oh, oh my. Well, in my own opinion I think we should let him go. There's no telling what he could or couldn't do here. It's better than killing him."

"That's all I needed."

~*~

"Get your punk ass up." Daryl grabbed Randall's arm and pushed him out of the doors. He was very angry at me for my decision, but who cares? If I die because of it, then I die.

"Man, now what? Lillian, what's happenin'?" Randall asked me, still trying to get the hang of his new leg as he walked away. I didn't respond to him as he was blindfolded and stuffed into the trunk of a station wagon we were going to be taking soon. 

Shane watched me closely, shaking his head disapprovingly as I packed a small bag of supplies to get him started. There was absolutely no way we were keeping him around anymore, for more than one reason.

Daryl stayed at the farm. He said he was going to go hunting, which meant he was gonna kill things to blow off some steam he had bottled up all day.

I think Rick was the only sane person here now, which made me feel a bit better that it wasn't going to be just Shane and I this time. A third person would be a lot better.

We climbed inside of the car, I was in the backseat while Shane drove. Rick was checking a map as I stared at Shane through the rear-view mirror. He looked up, caught my eyes, and smirked at me.

"Take this road, left." Rick pointed, breaking off the staring contest we were having. Shane nodded and turned the wheel.

"So, we let him out, give him supplies, leave him, come home?" I asked, laying down in the backseat with my feet against the window. Rick shrugged his shoulders.

"Seems fair...enough. It's the least we could do, instead of killing him. Right?" 

"Yeah," I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of the fuel fumes that were in the air. "Seems fair."

It took about forty five minutes to get where we were supposed to drop him off at. I jumped from the car once we stopped and opened the car's trunk. Randall turned his head every other direction, since he couldn't see through the blindfold.

Rick and Shane picked the boy up, pushing him every which way just to make a point out of something. Randall was tied up, which meant he couldn't go anywhere unless he tried really hard to do so.

"This is still a bad idea." Shane shook his head, kicking Randall down to the ground. He then pulled the cloth blindfold from Randall's face, looking to his left at Rick.

"I don't think so." I chimed in, slamming the trunk door shut before turning around to hop onto the car to sit. I watched the three men in front of me carefully, trying to decide what to say next, or even if I should speak.

All I could think about at that moment was what Randall had told Daryl. Was he really a rapist? There's not exactly a justice system in such a corrupt world, but there had to be some evidence to rule the story out?

Rick said something to Randall that I couldn't hear, and pulled a knife from his pocket, throwing the blade toward the concrete. He and Shane turned back to me, waiting patiently for something.

"No, no, no, man! Come on, I ain't gonna hurt any of y'all! Why'd you go and save me if you're jus' gonna toss me out like garbage?" Randall began to have a fit, screaming that we were basically killing him.

"Lillian, get his bag so we can leave." Rick motioned to the car. I reluctantly jumped from the car where I was sitting and dug into the backseat where I was before, grabbing a backpack filled with supplies I had packed.

I simply threw the bag onto the ground, smiling at the two standing men. We all tried to ignore Randall, as he kept screaming at us. Begging to not be left on his own. I don't blame him; I wouldn't want to be left alone either. Especially with an amputated leg.

"Let's go." Rick said as he started to walk away from Randall, followed by Shane and I. I took one last look at him as he scurried over towards the lone knife, trying to grab it to cut the ropes from his wrists.

I shut the car door, taking a deep breath as we began to drive away from my first patient of the apocalypse.

He was defenseless, thrown out into the world with only one functioning leg. But it was better than him being around everyone at the farm. At least here he can't hurt any of us.

Rick started the engine of the car up, but before we had the chance to drive away Randall yelled something at us that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, and made a chill run down my spine as he spoke.

"God, come on! I knew Maggie for Christ sake!"

Shane and Rick didn't hesitate to jump from the car. They both had a gun to Randall's face in mere seconds, and I was silently waiting for this to end.

"What the hell did you just say?" Shane snarled, resting his finger on the trigger of his pistol. 

Randall was frantic. He tried to crawl backward on his knees to get away from their aim, but had little luck.

"I-I-I-I mean, we went to the same college. She didn't know me, y'know? She was popular, and I know her dad too. Hershel? Yeah, him and his wife."

"You just made a big mistake..." I whispered; I guess it was loud enough that Randall could hear me because his eyes darted my way with fear etched into his pupils.

"Should we just kill him?" Shane asked, wiping away the sweat that had formed on his forehead.

Rick shook his head, and put away the pistol he held while Shane stayed in the same position he was in before.

"Guys, no, why would he come back to kill us? I saved his life!" I butted into their conversation, trying to persuade the two men to leave with me. I was ready to get out of there.

The abandoned parking lot had multiple rotting bodies splattered on the ground, and the ghost echo of it gave me a bad vibe, which made my anxiety meter turn upward to 100.

"And of his friends decide you kidnapped him instead?"

"It was for a good cause..." I trailed off, looking over to Randall.

He shook his head. "No, no, I won't tell them what happened. You can't leave me out here alone! I'm fucking handicap for fucks sake!"

"Just leave him, let's go before Walkers decide to join our merry party. Rick, Shane, please." I tried to beg. It didn't seem to work, because they ignored me and began an argument.

"Let's go." Rick turned away from Shane, who was completely appalled that he was walking away. Shane let his aim drop, then looked to me.

"This is your fault. We were all fine and merry before you came along."

"My fault? What the hell did I do!?" I yelled, throwing my hands up in defense. I stared at him before continuing.

"If you weren't such an asshole, we wouldn't have to fight over someones life! A human being! You want to kill him, and for what?"

"Enough! Both of you. It's over. He won't make it out here anyway, it'd be a goddamn miracle if he does." Rick's voice boomed over the two of us, making my face turn hot. I was beyond angry at that point; I'd much rather walk than ride along with them back to the farm.

"I can't believe this. Yeah, I'm the bad guy here. You know what, fuck you Shane! I try to do the right thing but I'm just bad at that okay? I get it, you dont have to remind me that I suck at everything." I spat, turning away towards the car, "When you're both done with that fucker lets leave, I need to start packing my things."

I didn't regret my outburst, but I really wish deep down that I did. Daryl will probably be mad at me, and everyone else, but come tomorrow I'll be out of here, so what does it matter?

I watched as Randall begged to go back to the farm for the millionth time. I was getting so tired of hearing his voice, that I stomped back to the car as Rick and Shane finished talking to one another.

I had officially made up my mind, that I was going to leave this group by tomorrow night. The only problem I had was to tell Daryl. No doubt he'll hold it against me, saying I'm going to leave just like I did in high school. 

I guess it's the calm before the storm.


	22. On My Way

Shane and Rick were silent as we rode back to camp. I didn't expect any difference, other than I assumed they would chew me out for my stupid outburst. But, they didn't. Shane didn't even glance at me through the mirror.

Half of me hurt on the inside, knowing I had made the mistake of screaming and my actions will have consequences later on, and the other half of me just didn't give a shit. 

I'm not sure which side I should follow anymore.

The car stopped as we neared the farm. An abundance of people were waiting for our return with open arms and worried faces. Rick turned his head towards Shane and I before whispering,

"We don't tell anyone about what Randall said. Not yet. Hear me?"

Shane scratched the side of his face before nodding, which I mimicked unconsciously before turning away to exit the car. I opened the door, hurdled my body out and took a deep breath. I didn't know what to do next.

"Is it done?" Hershel asked, crossing his arms with a grunt. Rick nodded, slamming the car door shut as he walked away to find his family. The crowd parted, continuing with their everyday tasks leaving Shane and I alone. 

Before I could trudge off to my tent, he stopped me.

"Can I talk to you?" 

"Depends," I paused to cross my arms. "Are you going to yell at me?"

"No."

"Then proceed."

He already seemed annoyed with me and what I was doing. I loosened up with his serious time and nodded.

"You said you were going to leave, didn't you?" He leaned his hips on the car, waiting for a direct answer.

I was probably lying when I said that, but the more I think about it, the more I wish I followed my own words.

"Why? Are you just aching to get me out? If im honest, I don't blame you."

"No," Shane rolled his eyes, standing up. He towered over me, making my self esteem quiver anxiously. I tired to act tough around everyone, but really I'm filled with anxiety 24/7.

"Then what is it? Can't wait to tell the whole group before I do? Tryna be the good guy here?" I snapped, looking up at him with fire engulfing my eyes. He shook his head once more and lowered his voice to a whisper.

"I want to come with you."

"Absolutely not!" I took five full steps backwards, shaking my head vigorously as he chased after me.

"Lillian, I know we dont see eye-to-eye, but I want to get out of this damned group as much as you do! We don't have to be together the whole time, I can take a car and we can just leave. Whether you say yes or no, I'm going anyway, you might as well tag along."

"You hate me! And now you want to go on some journey with me!? Man, what the hell is going on in your noggin?" I tried not to scream, in case someone else over heard us. Shane huffed. 

"Yeah, I get we're not two peas in a pod but less face it. You won't survive on your own out there, as much as you've gotten grabbed by a walker you'd be dead in an hour."

I debated for a swift moment.

"That's true..." I hated to admit it, but he was right. I get distracted too easily, and I'd most likely get hurt on my own; or worse.

"We got a deal then?"

"Fine." I nodded reluctantly. "What the hell are we supposed to tell everyone else then? 'Hey, we hate you so we're leaving, bye'?"

"I'll go talk to Rick. Don't worry about that. We'll leave tonight, go get your shit and hurry up."

He walked away without another word, leaving me alone with just my thoughts. What the fuck was I getting myself into this time?

~*~

By this time I was searching around the farm for Daryl, to break the news to him and see what his opinion is. He finally found him behind the shed that we had put Randall in; he was carving something out of a stick with the smallest knife he had (which was still pretty big).

I waited for him to spot me, which after a minute I decided to speak up in case he was ignoring me. That was what I suspected.

"Daryl..." I say down on the grass with my legs crossed over. I began to break off pieces of the turf and wrap them around my fingers as I searched for words. He didn't stop messing with his knife, so I went on.

"I have to tell you something. You won't like it I'll assure you that." I began, looking up to find some sort of reaction from him.

Daryl grunted, looking towards me slowly. I straightened my posture now that I had some sort of audience.

"I've decided to leave your group. I don't like being the center of all your problems, and I feel bad because of it," I brought my knees to my chest and took another short breath. I felt like I was going to burst into tears, and I definitely don't want that to happen.

"You're just gonna leave? Again?" I knew he'd bring up high school. I didn't know what else to do, so I just slowly nodded as he violently stood up.

"Yeah, I am. This group can't make decisions without pulling guns on one another!" I stood up along with him and crossed my arms over my chest as if I were a child having a tantrum.

"And you're going alone?" He chuckled, "you ain't gonna last ten minutes out there. 'Specially with that long ass hair, how many times have you gotten caught from it?"

I reached behind my head and ran my fingers through the hair in a ponytail unconsciously, feeling my face get warm as he shook his head.

"No, Shane is going with me."

"You're goin' with a sociopath?" His voice boomed, then he stared at me. "Fuck it, just go then. Nobody wants you around anyway."

"Hey," my voice croaked, and I tried to hold back the lump that had formed in my throat. "Fuck you Daryl." I whispered, turning on my heel back towards where my tent was pitched.

Why was I not used to any of his words by now? After a few years you'd think I could predict everything he would say, but that man always surprises me.

As I neared the rest of the group, Shane was waiting for me beside my tent. I ignored him, and dove inside to pack my extra supplies I had in my backpack, and my sleeping bag. I figured I'd leave the tent as a reminder. For what, I wasn't sure about yet.

Shane ducked his head in, trying to make me hurry. I just rolled my eyes.

"Did you tell Rick?" I asked, zipping my bag. He nodded.

"Yeah. We'll leave as soon as I gas up the car."

"Fine."

"You alright? Having second thoughts about leavin'?" He seemed genuine with his question, but of course I was pissed off at Daryl's words still so I was being a stone cold bitch at the moment.

"No, I'm fine. I'm just eager to leave I guess."

Shane sighed, nodding his head before he snuck away to go fix the car, or whatever he said he was going to do. I wasn't listening very well in my blind rage.

So I sat in my empty tent, staring at a lady bug that had flown in from outside as it walked across the cloth floor. I could hear voices from outside, but I didn't register what they were saying at first.

I didnt hear my name at first, but once Rick said it I snapped out of my trance and scooted my body closer towards the mesh window to see what they were doing. 

Rick, Andrea, T-Dog, Maggie, and Glenn were gathered around a blue truck, talking about going on different runs later that day.

"When Lillian and Shane get back, I'll have to see about getting a few more scouts out. We're running low on gas for the cars, so hopefully they'll grab some when they're out."

I unzipped my tent quickly, leaving my backpack on the ground, before looking around the farm for Shane. He had quite a bit of explaining to do.

He was doing exactly what he told me he'd be doing, so I tried not to look suspicious while walking quickly towards where he was. He greeted me.

"Almost ready-"

"What the hell! Did you not tell Rick we were leaving for good!?" I asked, lowering my voice with each word so no one else could hear what I was saying. Shane put the gas can down and crossed his arms. He was at least a full foot taller than I was, which was very intimidating.

"He'd flip shit if I told him that. We've been friends since highschool, imagine how he'd take that news. If we don't come back, he'll assume were dead."

"You'd rather him think we're dead, than him not worry!? What? Does that even make sense!?" I smacked his cheek slightly as not to anger him, but hard enough to get my point across.

"Stop it, goddammit! You don't know Rick like I do. Trust me, this is the better option Lillian."

I grunted unhappily, rolling my eyes. "If you say so..." I mumbled.

"Go get your stuff, I'm almost done. Don't mention anything to Daryl, by the way."

Oops.

"Okay." I walked away toward my tent once again, waving his words away.

Too late.


	23. Running Away

We were on our way down the dirt road leading away from the farm with silence looming above our heads uncomfortably. I stared out of the window, counting the different walkers that were bloody and decomposed head to toe. So far I've counted twenty seven.

"Rick will be fine." Shane finally said. I didn't even move.

"Alright."

"I'm not the bad guy here." He continued.

"I know."

"Then why are you acting like it?" He reved the car's engine, going at least fifty mph.

"I'm not. I just don't have anything to say." I replied honestly. What the hell was I supposed to say to him at this point? We don't like each other very much, plain and simple.

He didn't say anything after that, which made the ride even more awkward.

"Where are we going?" I asked, sitting up in my seat, moving the adjustments on the side so I could put my feet on the dashboard effortlessly.

"I'm not sure yet."

"Wow. Im excited."

"Don't be a smartass. Pick a place on the map and we'll go from there then, if you wanna complain."

"I said three words." I snatched the map from his hands and looked at the different roads and highways that were drawn across it. Red pen was circling quite a few places, some of which seems habitable.

"What about Macon?" I asked, pointing to the town on the map he had given me. Shane just shrugged.

"What else do you see?"

"Um...Albany? Or Woodbury, or Montgomery, um..." I continued to name off some places before he became annoyed. After a few more, he became aggravated and stopped me.

"Just pick one." Shane rolled his eyes. I checked the time on the watch that was on the dashboard, hoping that it was correct. It read 7:34, but that could be wrong.

"I choose...." I closed my eyes, running my finger over the paper simultaneously before stopping after five seconds.  
"Woodbury. I guess."

"You guess?"

"Well, I suppose then. Is that better? What do you want from me." I mumbled to myself, looking back at the map. "Guess that's where we're going then."

"We'll have to find a place to sleep for the night. There's no way I'm driving when I can't see the goddamn roads."

"That's fair." I nodded my head, looking to my right toward the window. "Like a house or something?"

"I guess. Keep your eye out for something."

"There's a house...I think. Yeah it's a house. Its old as f-"

"Good job." He whispered, turning the steering wheel sharply. The tires squealed loudly as Shane did a full u-turn. He drove into the driveway that was filled with dead leaves and dried bloody footprints.

We were kinda lucky to only have driven an hour and a half as we came across this weird looking house. I was surprised we actually found one so quickly, but who am I to complain?

Shane stopped the car completely and grabbed his pistol before exiting. I followed, but with my knife instead of a firearm.

He knocked on the door a few times and looked to me as we waited for something to move inside, or make a noise. I figured small talk away exceptional at this point.

"Why are you such an ass all the time?" The words trailed from my thoughts to my mouth and as they escaped my lips I quickly regretted saying them. Shane seemed appalled by what I had just asked him.

He was searching for an answer when a walker started beating on the wall from the inside. Shane's attention turned away from me and toward the noise; he turned the doorknob slowly and jerked it open, revealing a small child that had been turned into a corpse.

Shane didn't hesitate to stab them in the head, then he wiped the blood from his blade onto his pant leg before looking down at me.

"Damn." My voice cracked. It was so goddamn sad to see a child in such a situation; it fucking sucked if I'm gonna be completely honest.

Shane stepped over the bleeding body and trudged into the living room. I grabbed a flashlight from our car quickly before joining his side.

The living room was trashed, only to an extent where there were clothes on the floor and it smelled like rotting flesh everywhere. I covered my nose for a moment to cough, then followed Shane as he walked throughout the small house looking for any threats.

"Stay in the kitchen and try to find some supplies, or something. I'll go check upstairs." He ordered, pointing away from us to the stairs leading to who knows what. I didn't object, so I just nodded and handed the flashlight to him.

I always kept a smaller one in my pocket just in case, so I reached for that and began to search the cabinets for anything that could have seemed useful.

Nothing. Nothing. And three batteries.

Then I moved on to the other side of the room, shining the light into a taller cabinet than I was. I couldn't see anything for sure, so I turned around to find something to stand on.

A wooden chair seemed sturdy enough. I scooted it closer toward the wall so I could get a better view of what was in there.

An unopened box of crackers, two boxes of cereal (Frosted Flakes and Mini Wheats, if you must know), and a package of (most likely) stale M&Ms. 

I sighed before grabbing the boxes and shuffling down from the chair. Shane walked into the kitchen with the flashlight pointed right at my face.

I squinted as he laughed softly.  
"Sorry. Find anything good?"

"Cereal, a few batteries, crackers and M&Ms." I grabbed a piece of candy from the bag and chomped down on it, making disgusted face.

I can confirm, they are stale.

"Better than nothing. There's a bed upstairs, which is the only one. I'll sleep down here on the couch, and we can take shifts."

"Okay. Sound good to me." I nodded, grabbing a handful of Frosted Flakes before shoving them into my mouth. I haven't had cereal in about a year, and damn was it good. Better than I remember.

Shane grabbed the box of crackers and opened a new package.

"What do we do when we get to Woodbury? What if it's not even there? Do we just move on to the next place?" I asked between mouthful of food. Shane nodded his head at my question.

"That's all we can do, right?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right." I trailed my sentence off, taking one of the crackers from the new package in his hands.

"Go get some sleep, and I'll keep watch first, okay?" He waved me away, motioning towards the stairs to the left of me. I sighed deeply. 

"Fine. If you insist." I joked, setting the box of cereal down on the table before walking away from Shane. "Thanks, by the way." I smiled.

He nodded, and disappeared into another room as I left.

~*~

I had just tossed and turned instead of actually sleeping. It wasn't that the bed was uncomfortable, it was the fact that I wondered what Rick and the group were thinking right now. We had been gone for only three hours, but it was already dark.

I would be worried.

There was just a pit of guilt in my stomach that made me want to vomit what little I had eaten that day. I still couldn't believe Shane had lied to Rick.

I didn't know my feelings toward him at the moment. He seems like a good guy, he just has a really bad temper and moral standards.

Finally, after about an hour of staring at the ceiling I decided to just got up and switch shifts with Shane. I laced up my boots, and put my jean jacket on before walking out of the room, and downstairs into the living area.

Shane was staring at the window with a gun in his hand. I accidentally made the steps creak, alerting him. He rubbed his tired eyes, nodding at me.

"Thought you were sleepin'?"

"Couldn't stay asleep. Why don't you go get so rest, I'll look out." I reached for the gun in his hand. Shane eyes me suspiciously for a long moment that felt like it would last forever, until he finally handed it over to me.

"Alright. Wake me up in an hour or two." He responded, walking away up the staircase. I nodded, even if his back was turned to me.

I watched as he disappeared around the corner, then I sat down on the dusty, old couch behind me. The entire house was eerily quiet, which made my anxiety boil.

All I could do now was wait until morning time, where I could see outside clearly without using my flashlight as a substitute for the brightness of that the sun gave off during daytime.


	24. Miles Apart

I had accidentally fallen asleep on the couch during the night, but thankfully I had woken up minutes before Shane did, so at least he would be in a good mood today. Hopefully.

I heard footsteps moving upstairs as I rubbed my eyelids awake. Quickly, I stood up and made my way into the kitchen, where the cereal boxes still were from last night. I was so grateful for the breakfast food, it was preserved quite well actually.

I saw from the corner of my eye that Shane had walked into the living room, looking for me. 

"Morning." I smiled happily, "what are the plans for today?"

"Driving."

"Immediately? We can't stay for a while here? I wanna scout around, see what we can find! Come on, we have all the time in the world."

Shane sat in a creaking wooden chair at the dining room table and shrugged his shoulders, seeming too tired to disagree with me.

"Awesome. Here's some cereal. We should go look around soon. It's only nine twenty-three so we have all morning still." I motioned to my watch. Shane nodded, taking my food offer. He ate a few handfuls of Mini Wheats before looking to his right towards the window and the front door.

"I zip-tied the door handle to a window curtain rod that was on the wall some time last night. I don't remember doing it, guess I was delusional?" I shrugged, sitting at the table across from him.

"Why're you so cheerful this morning?" Shane knitted his eyebrows together with a confused smirk. I didn't exactly know how to answer his question, so just shrugged loosely. 

"When can we leave?"

"Why ya' so eager to go?"

"This place gives me weird vibes. There's railroad tracks behind the house, maybe we can search along there too. I don't know."

"Alright. Let me go get my other gun, then we can go." Shane stood up suddenly, taking another handful of cereal before walking away. I heard the front door open, meaning he had gotten through the ziptie barrier I had made last night.

I took that as an excuse to search the bathroom for a hair brush, in order to tame the knotted mess on top of my head. Satisfied with what I had found, I ran the brush through my hair simultaneously, taking a bottle of water from my bag to wet my brush.

I was surprised that it actually helped with the tangles. As I heard the front door open, I pulled all of my hair back into a ponytail before meeting Shane in the living room. He wasn't happy.

"Bad news."

"Oh no."

"The damn truck won't start. I tried fixing the battery, and putting a bit of oil in it but - nothing worked."

"Now what?" I asked, taking a deep sigh with frustration. Shane mimicked me, and spoke up.

"I guess we walk."

My head sunk low, and I let out a loud groan. "Dammit, stupid ass truck!" I kicked the side of the couch, crossing my arms. Shane rolled his eyes.

"Let's go then." He pointed towards my cereal boxes before walking away. "Bring those if you want them. If not, we should leave now."

I nodded my head, grabbing the box of Frosted Flakes before following Shane through the kitchen, towards the back door. Our eyes met for a short moment before he finally opened the door, gesturing me to go.

I stepped outside onto the mossy ground, feeling the fresh grass squish beneath my boots as I walked towards the railroad tracks, Shane following behind me.

"You sure you know where we're goin'?" Shane asked, avoiding sticks and rocks in our path. I nodded.

"Pretty sure, at least. I saw them here when I went on a walk..."

Shane sighed, holding his pistol close by in case anything were to jump out at us.

Suddenly my foot hit a piece of metal, making a smile tug at my face. I moved a pile of leaves away with my feet, looking at Shane triumphantly.

"I know I'm so good at finding things." I joked, turning to my left. "Now all we do is follow the tracks. Woodbury is this way."

Shane handed the map to me before following alongside me, smiling brightly.

"Good job."

"Aw, thank you." I stepped up into the track, trying to balance myself as if it were a game (which it was). 

After a few minutes of walking, I could practically feel my foot slipping from the metal. I quickly extended my arm out, grabbing Shane's arm before I bit the dust in front of him.

He laughed, gazing at me as I stood upward. I rolled my eyes, embarrassed.

"Oops, sorry."

~*~

After walking for a while, Shane and I had stumbled upon a giant train-station-like building that was almost completely empty, except for a few things I didn't plan on ever seeing.

Five different Walkers were wearing collars, and chained up to a few cars that had been placed inside of the building. Shane pushed me backward slightly before he grabbed one of the corpses by their shoulder, stabbing deep into their brain. 

He started to kill them one after the other. I'm not exactly sure why he was doing it, but there was no way I was gonna try to stop him.

As the last one dropped, he looked over toward me before shrugging.

"Who the hell would do this? What's the point?" I asked rhetorically, not expecting Shane to actually know who did it. He just shrugged his shoulders again, taking a deep breath.

"We should leave-" 

His sentence was interrupted by the door behind me swinging open, almost hitting me. Four men walked inside, their conversations ceasing. 

"What in the ever-loving fuck happened!?" One of the men yelled, causing the rest to pull out an assortment of guns. Shane had his raised, but my body was frozen in place.

"Damn, they killed our Biters!" One of them screamed, cocking the shotgun he held. Shane grabbed my arm quickly, pulling me behind him.

"Fellas, we don't want any trouble. It was like this when we got here." Shane lied, holding the gun up. "We don't have to fight."

"The fuck? Buddy, I don't know who you think you're talkin' to, but it damn sure ain't us. You're in Mercenary territory." One man pointed to a dead corpse.

"M. That's us." There was a giant 'M' spray painted on the back of a Walker's shirt sloppily. I rolled my eyes at them.

"Very original..." I mumbled, causing Shane to wave his hand in my face.

"You got somethin' to say!?" Another man spoke up. I shook my head at his question. Shane sighed. 

"C'mon fellas, let's work somethin' out-" he quickly pointed the pistol at the man closest to him, shooting him directly on the forehead. He fell to the floor as bullets started popping off.

Shane tackled me to the ground behind a car as the three other men took cover behind whatever they could find. I took a deep breath before looking to him.

"Are you fucking crazy?" I asked, watching him nod with a smile. 

"Yeah, stay here." He quickly ran away toward another car. 

I turned around, only to be greeted by a fist to the side of my face. I fell backwards onto the ground with a smack, as the man got on top of me and kept throwing punches. I started screaming, clawing at his arms with my dirt infested nails leaving few scratches behind.

His fists just kept coming at my face, busting open my lip. My entire mouth filled with blood, tasting metallic and chalky. I screamed, shielding my face with my scrawny arms, hoping that would stop him.

But suddenly a shot rang out, and the man stopped punching me. Blood squirted on my face as he fell over, grabbing at his stomach as he bled all over himself. I stomped my foot on the ground multiple times, picking up the pistol I had dropped.

I aimed, then pulled the trigger three times, shooting the dying man in the chest again and again.

I spit out a mouthful of blood onto the ground, trying to catch my breath. 

"That hurt like a motherfucker!" I screamed at his dead body, grabbing at the pain coursing through my face. I wasn't sure if my cheek was bleeding, or if it was just the other man's blood that had gotten on me.

Shane grabbed my shoulder, causing me to stop aiming at the dead man. He held my face in his hand, looking at the marks he had left on me.

"It's bleeding, it's gonna be bruised." He smeared the blood, bending over to check the dead bodies for loot. 

"We should leave. No doubt the gunfire attracted more of them." I shook his arm, trying to drag him towards the door. Shane quickly stuffed the shotgun shells into his backpack before standing up.

"You're right. Come on, let's go then."

We walked away, surprisingly alive from that fiasco. Shane slammed the door behind us, and started running off down the railroad tracks, hoping to move away from where the gunfire had been.

Hopefully we won't run into a lot of Walkers on our way this time.


	25. Territorial

As we walked, I tried my best to clean up the gash on my face. With what little water I had left, I dabbed a piece of cloth over my bruised lip. Shane kept his head down, occasionally looking up at me for a second.

"You're banged up, too." I cleared the silence, trying to start conversation.

"I'll be fine. You took a worse beating than I did." 

There was a long pause before I decided to say something to lighten the mood as best as I could.

"How far is Woodbury?"

"Three miles, thankfully." Shane sighed, shifting awkwardly. I threw the bloody washcloth on the ground, leaving it behind as we made our way to the new sanctuary.

"How's my face look?" I asked, trying to sound hopeful. Hopefully the gash wouldn't leave any scars. I would hate for a permanent reminder of what had happened. 

"Eh. It'll heal. Then you'll have some battle scars." Shane laughed half-heartedly. I gave him a smile.

"I don't want any. That's my problem."

"It'll be fine. We just gotta make it to Woodbury. It's not too far now."

"Can you tell me a story? To pass the time." I asked, disregarding his last statement as I looked up at Shane.

He seemed surprised by my request.  
"About what?"

"I don't know. What's the backstory between you and Rick? You said you were good friends. What happened?"

Shane seemed very hesitant to tell me anything about his life from before, almost as if it didn't matter. I think it does. Those skills you learned are literally the only things keeping you alive at this point.

After what seemed like an eternity of silence, Shane spoke up after clearing his throat harshly.

"Before this happened Rick was my partner in fighting crime, y'know?" He began, pausing every so often to check our surroundings. "One day he got shot in the chest. Radio said there were only two people in the car...turns out there was a third one."

I listened closely, trying not to let my mind wander off while he told his story. I didn't want to miss any seemingly important details either.

"The third guy shot Rick, came this close to his heart," he gestured with a gap between his fingers. "I didn't know how to tell Lori. I couldn't. I had to go meet her at Carl's school, and break the news to her.

"She told Carl. Everyday after school he'd want to go see his dad. Until one day, the hospital's were closed, and the news stations were evacuating people. The military came, started shooting everyone. I used my badge to get into the hospital, to get Rick out. He was still hooked up to the life support.." Shane trailed off, holding up his gun in front of him.

I froze, turning to look at what he had seen up ahead. His eyes trailed off toward the forest beside us; bugs and birds were screaming loudly, which made it hard to hear anything.

I stood still, almost as if I was a statue in ancient Greece, looking straight forward at the railroad tracks as a small animal, a rabbit, ran onto the metal. Shane lowered his gun, but seemed to still be listening.

"We should move faster. No tellin' how many walkers are nearby after those gunshots." Shane began to walk again, so I followed him.

I looked at the man closely, hoping he would get an idea and continue with his story. Eventually he did, and sighed loudly.

"Um," Shane thought for a second, "I left him. I couldn't do anything else, I pushed a gurney in front of the door and got out as quickly as I could..."

"I remember seeing those news reports. Government facilities were captured by a reporter, it was so awful. There were just...bodies. Everywhere." I shivered slightly.

Shane nodded his head along, which made me feel a bit better at the moment.

"My brother came over to check on me as soon as he heard about it all. It's been what? A year now? And there's no cure, no more military, or hospitals?"

It dawned on me once again that my brother had left us stranded. Who knew if he was even alive still? Where could be even be, or be going now? It's been weeks.

"I don't think we should rely on the military anymore. Seems that the hospitals are all bombed back in Atlanta. Who even knows what it's like across the world?"

All I could think to do was nod in agreement, so that's what I proceeded to do. 

"Your face is bleeding again." Shane pointed out. "Must be the cold weather, crackin' your skin. We'll be at Woodbury soon...I think."

I touched the wet spot on my face, wiping the blood away with the sleeve of my jacket before it dripped down my cheek anymore than it already had. I gave Shane a small, embarrassed smile.

"I can only imagine what those guys back there were up to. Who the hell keeps Walker's chained up like that?" I whispered, trying to make the conversation come alive again.

"Think there was somethin' important in there?" 

"Could be. Why else would they be there?" I asked, hugging my body uncomfortably. I didn't want to think about using walkers as weapons; is that even fair?

"Too bad we didn't get the chance to find out." Shane teased, lightening my mood.

"Yeah," I laughed. "There's no way I'm going back there, though."

~*~

It was almost dark by the time Woodbury was a quarter of a mile away. We would be there in ten minutes, assuming there was still somewhere to go. There could be cannibals, or thieves, or a town of just walkers.

Anything is possible at this point. Although, I hope we weren't still in Mercenary territory. I'd hate to encounter those people again; one time is enough for me.

Woodbury's walls were big, and made of welded metal parts that seemed to be only temporary at the time. It seemed under construction still, but with plenty of stability.

Shane was cautious about strolling up to the gates, he figured we should scope it out first before making any drastic decisions. It seemed the most logical, and I didn't want to make him mad, so I just went with it.

"Hey, I think I can climb up this tree," I offered. "I can look across the walls to see what's up."

Shane shrugged.

"It's worth a try. Be careful, alright? Don't need you to break your neck 'cause of a stupid mistake."

I dropped my backpack on to the ground before smiling at Shane.

"Yeah, yeah, no worries." I brushed his words off, grabbing onto a branch as I lifted my body upwards.

This wasn't the first tree I've climbed in my life, so I should be fine. There's a slight chance I could fall and break a bone, but that chance is slimmer than a toothpick.

One after the other, I wedged my body between two close tree limbs in order to stabilize myself before staring ahead at the town. It seemed like a ghost town; there were a few fires burning to keep the light in the streets, but other than that I didn't see anyone walking around.

"Shane, I don't see anyone." I whispered loud enough so he could hear. When no response came from him, I internally panicked and looked down at the ground.

A man was pointing a shotgun at Shane's back, while two others held guns toward me. I rolled my eyes.

"Son of a bitch."

I began to climb down from the tree, dropping on to the ground from a few feet up. I dusted myself off and stared at Shane.

"Coulda warned me." He sighed.

"I didn't even see anyone!"

"Shut up." The man who held Shane at gun point ordered, "where's the rest of your supplies at?"

"That's all of 'em. Those two backpacks." Shane was aggravated by the men already, I could definitely tell, even in the darkness.

"Really?" Another man asked. I nodded my head.

"We were on our way here, to Woodbury. I thought my brother might be here. We got...seperated." I lied, trying my best to sound as sad as I could possibly be.

There was a long pause as the three men exchanged glances with one another.

"Come on then. You have to meet the boss before you can get in at all."

Then, we were being led into the metal make-shift gates of the ghost town called Woodbury.


	26. Lost Bonds

My stomach was aching badly as Shane and I sat in the lobby of some sort of motel building. We were weapon-less, but I was the only one who seemed anxious.

My leg was bouncing up and down, which seemed to annoy Shane because he turned to me for a second before sighing.

"We're fine." I whispered to myself, trying to ease the anxiety racing through my body.

"Calm down." Shane crossed his arms over his chest and sat back in the chair he was seated in. My leg kept bouncing, which meant I felt no better than before.

"I'm trying. This place is creeping me out..." I stared at the old pictures across the walls. They seemed to have been taken ages ago, which added to the vintage-styled interior.

"Try harder."

"Thanks, I'm cured." I rolled my eyes at him, catching a glimpse of the bruises on his knuckles and face. He took a huge beating back at that warehouse, and the damage had showed clearly now.

The building we were sitting in had lights on. It baffled me; how in the hell were there working lights? Is there some sort of generator out here we don't know about.

A door beside us opened, revealing a tall, slim man with a grin on his face.

"Well, hello there." He seemed amused. I looked to Shane, who was not, by any chance, amused by our situation.

"You were spying?"

"Scoping the place out." Shane corrected, drawing the attention to him. I stared at the floor silently, trying not to breathe so loudly or let my foot slip.

"For?" The strange man asked, leaning forward a bit. Shane shrugged his shoulders loosely and scratched his cheek.

"Anything out of the ordinary. Wasn't sure what we were looking forward to, comin' all the way out here."

"Why'd you come then?"

"Needed help."

"Big man like you? Seems unlikely."

"Not me. Her."

Shane gestured toward me, causing the gear in my brain to go haywire. I looked up, silently wanting to slap him for no logical reason.

"And you are?" The man asked, nodding my way. I gulped.

"Lillian."

He turned his head to Shane then, which most likely meant it was his turn to be introduced. They locked eyes hastily, and Shane sighed.

"Shane."

"Alright. Lillian and Shane. You need help? Can see by your faces you've been in some trouble."

"No, I'm fine." I sat up. "We just...needed somewhere else to go."

"You've came to the right place. Woodbury is somewhere, right? I can have a doctor look at you two if you'd like. If it's help you need, this is the place to get it. As long as you won't be trouble, you can stay as long as you'd like." He nodded his head as the door opened again.

"Governor, we have a problem with the West gate." A man walked inside, paying no attention to Shane and I.

"Alright. I'll check it out, let me finish here."

"Governor? They call you that?" Shane sat up. He didn't seem to like that name.

"Some nicknames stick whether you want them to or not."

Who the hell gets that nickname? Who came up with it? Why was it assigned to him in particular.

Shane narrowed his eyes at the man before Governor spoke up again.

"We'll get you help. A room, also. Food, new clothing. My men here will have to take your weapons. My citizens come first, and you two only seem to be visiting for the moment. If you'd like to leave tomorrow, you're free to do so. We'll send you on your way, patched up, with a new vehicle, if that fits your fancy. No hard feelings." He smiled at us before turning to walk away, but before he disappeared completely, he grinned.

"Welcome to Woodbury."

~*~

Shane was not at all happy about having to give our guns to the right hand men that led us away from the lobby we were seated in earlier. I was exhausted, so I barely had a choice to begin with. My body was practically telling me to pass out on the floor.

Without another word, we were ushered into what looked to be a small motel room, thankfully, with two beds that had been neatly made up for us. A set of clothing was on each, which made me smile because my outfit was blood soaked and dirty.

A bowl of fruit sat on the dresser in front of the beds, piled with oranges and apples, along with other things.

Shane kept eye contact with the two people standing guard in the hallway, watching as he slowly shut the door. He looked to me.

"This place gives me the creeps." I shuddered, picking up the sweater that was on the bed to my right. I stared at it, then looked to Shane.

He agreed with me.

"Governor? What kinda nickname is that?" Shane sat on the opposite bed and trailed his fingers along the bruise located near his eye. I looked away from him, trying not to seem as weird as the people here. 

"They have fruit? Now that's a little weird." I casually picked up an apple and took a small bite from it, shrugging. It seemed okay enough.

"I'm not staying here." Shane shook his head. 

"Well, then neither am I." I said through a mouthful of fruit. 

Shane scoffed at what I said, making me choke on the apple I had in my mouth. He shook his head back and forth.

"Nah, you're staying." He stated. "You'll fit in just fine here."

"And you won't?" I mimicked his scoff, rolling my eyes at his behavior.

"Just - trust me, alright?" Shane raised his voice, making my chest swell up quickly. I took a deep breath.

"Fine, if you say so." I untied my shoes and took them off one by one.  
"I'm gonna sleep. Figure out what you're going to do, then wake me up, I guess. I don't care."

He stared at the pair of clothing on the bed he sat on and disappeared into the bathroom to change. I sighed, closing my eyes so I could try to sleep.

It wasn't easy, but after a while I had finally dozed off.


	27. Horizon

3rd Person Point Of View.

Shane had woken up somewhat early the next morning. He had changed into the new clothing that was laid out for him and Lillian, and was now walking around Woodbury accompanied by a guard. He was on his way to look for the Governor.

He wanted to get more information about this place, and who was running it, before he decided to actually stay; if that was even an option for him anymore.

With cold hands reaching toward the door to the town hall, Shane opened it and walked inside of the lobby. He turned to look at the guard, who was shorter and seemed weaker than he was.

"Go tell your boss I wanna talk to him." He barked quietly, watching as the guard walked away into another room. He waited patiently, staring at the paintings on the walls once again.

"Shane. What can I do for you?"

"Was wondering if we could talk." He got straight to the point, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

The Governor hesitated a few seconds before nodding his head. "Sure." He ushered for Shane to follow as they stepped back into a room. It was his office; where he kept a whole shelf of scavenged liquors for guests, and himself. 

Shane didn't sit down, he just stood silently. He was getting creeped out by the atmosphere, but soon got over the awkward feeling in his gut.

"Whiskey?" The Governor offered, pouring half of glass for himself. Shane shook his head and kept his mind on what he was supposed to be doing there.

"So," Governor sat down in an office chair opposite from where Shane stood. "Let's get to business. What do you need?"

"I want to know how safe this place is. How tight the walls are, how armed you are. I'm not even sure if Lillian should feel safe here."

"Lillian?" He raised an eyebrow, but it quickly hit him. "The girl you're with?"

"Yeah, man. She's still sleepin', and here's the thing - I want her to stay. For her to do that, to stay, I want her to feel safe. Alright?"

"Shane, I can assure you that Woodbury is safe. We've got big walls, and guns. Food and water."

Shane nodded, wracking his brain in silence.

"Why don't you want to stay?"

"This isn't my thing. Not really."

"You want action? I can put you on the scavenge team. Every day they go out for a few hours, come back with loot. Adrenaline."

Shane laughed, shaking his head.  
"Nah, man. This isn't my thing."

"You're gonna leave Lillian?"

Shane looked up, staring at the Governor with a melancholy expression, trying to find an answer to his question that wouldn't make him seem like a complete shithead.

"She can handle herself." Shane finally said, knowing he's practically lying to himself about that. He's saved her life how many times now?

"With those bruises, I'm sure you can too. I'd hate to see the other guy."

"That's 'cause he's dead." Shane stated, crossing his arms before taking a deep, breath. He leaned backward on the door frame, waiting for some sort of response.

"Of course he is." The Governor nodded. "Shane, I can assure you this town is completely safe. We have patrols around the walls all day, plenty of rooms and food, supplies."

Shane nodded, satisfied with .

"Can you set me up with a car? Don't want to stick around much longer."

The Governor smiled, nodding his head before standing up from the desk he sat at.

"I'll arrange that. I'll have my men get your weapons, and some supplies for you."

Shane nodded his thanks, turning around to leave. Before he could, the Governor stopped him.

"I wish you'd reconsider. Woodbury could use some more tough souls like you."

Shane thought nothing of what he said, and walked away from the door, back down the vintage hallway.

~*~

Shane walked back into the room he and Lillian had been set up in. He shut the door behind him, looking toward the other bed with a cheerful girl sitting criss-crossed on the clean sheets.

"Hey." Lillian grinned, "guess what. There's a guy who used to be a hair dresser, he cut my hair shorter. Not too short, but I went with what you said. Remember? Do you like it?"

Shane took a moment to process what she had said, then nodded with a small smile on his face. "Looks nice."

"Thanks, so what did you go do? You weren't here for a while."

"I, uh, went to talk with the Governor."

Lillian stood up from the bed, raising her eyebrow suspiciously at the man in front of her.

"What about?"

"Lillian, you should really stay here Okay? I think it's for the best, and-"

"For the best? Shane are you delusional I don't wanna stay here without someone to complain to!" Lillian slumped on the bed, resting her forehead in her hands.  
"You can't do this."

"The hell I can't. I'd be much better out there, on my own. Get that? I don't want to be here, following orders with a nickname like the Governor." Shane watched her pout, trying to push away his emotions for a moment.

"I want to stay, with you, you're the only one who's tolerated me this long."

"No, okay. I'm getting a car, getting my shit together and leaving. You're gonna stay here." Shane clenched his teeth, taking a big step forward toward her.

"Wow, sucks that you're not my guardian, huh? I don't exactly have to listen to you." Lillian stuck out her tongue, turning around to pick up her backpack.

"Lillian-"

"No, stop. There's two options. One, we leave together. Or two, we stay here. Together. Pick one."

Shane chuckled, running his hand over the beardthat had begun to grow on his face. He stood still for a moment, weighing his options.

He decided that there's no getting rid of this girl now, and he's just gonna have to stick it out until one of them die. Whether it be tomorrow, or years from now.

"You're so damn stubborn. Goddammit, Lillian." Shane sat on the bed closest to him, looking up to her with a tired look. "Fine." He finally gave in.   
"We'll stay for a while. See how things go-"

"Good, then I don't have to pack."

"And when I get tired of this place, I'm leaving. With or without you."

Lillian held out her hand, waiting for Shane to take it. He reached for it, as she pulled him upward and wrapped her arms around him tightly.

"Thanks." She whispered softly, hoping he heard her.

"Alright, let's not get mushy."

"Mushy is my speciality."

"Let me go find what's-his-name and tell him what we've decided. Guess we're gonna get jobs or some shit now, huh?"

"It's worth it." Lillian smiled, watching Shane shut the door as he walked out to fine the leader of Woodbury.

She was silent, plucking another apple from the bowl on the bedside table before taking a big bite out of it. Now all she had to do was wait for his return.


	28. Two Is Better Than One

Lillian's Point of View.

I was assigned to inventory. Counting the stock piles, tracking what goes on and what goes out. It was really boring, but I didn't have much of a choice. Shane was a scavenger, of course. He's got the muscle and brains for it.

A man, who I think was named Bill, was showing me around the warehouse. It seemed more of an empty garage, but a lot bigger.

There were shelves and tables filled with food, weapons, ammunition, you name it.

"So, count how many liters there are of liquids, how many cans of food there are, the rounds in each gun, and each gun themselves. Basically just check it off, fill in the slot, turn it in for the day." Bill explained, handing a clipboard with about twenty pages, and an old pen.

I nodded my head, trying to be nice about my words and think before I say things. Shane had told me not to be as sarcastic as I was with him, because some people take it the wrong way.

I guess some people dont like tongue in cheek humor, unlike myself.

Bullshit, but if it'll make him stop pestering me about it, I'll try it out just for him. Even if I'd rather die than stop being sarcastic.

"Can do, seems easy enough." I nodded, taking the objects from his hands.

Bill scoffed. "After you're done, go see Governor for somethin' else to do."

With that, he walked away without looking back at me again. I shrugged, turning around to begin counting everything. There were so many things in that warehouse, I'm kinda surprised they had this much items collected in so little time.

One after another, I counted labels on soup cans, how many grams were in cereal boxes, and wrote down what I had gotten. It was really boring, but at least I had gotten an easy job.

After a short while, I stopped for a moment to look out of the window to my right. There seemed to be a ruckus happening outside, and a few people seemed to be yelling.

I watched closely, trying to figure out what was happening, but I couldn't see very much from the dusty window, considering the way that the warehouse was facing toward the street. 

I set my clipboard down, along with the pen, and quickened my pace as I ran outside. Citizens were running, screaming, trying to get away from whatever it was that was making it's way into the town.

My eyes darted to the gates as three military vehicles rode in, practically tearing the walls down with them. I walked backwards running into a man on accident. He paid no attention to me, and held up his rifle.

I turned on my heel, making my legs move as fast as they could go as I headed for the town hall. That was the only place I could think to go.

Another man stood in my way, a gun in his hands as he aimed it at me. I ducked quickly, feeling a bullet pierce my shoulder, but only the edge. I'd be fine, but I just had to keep running away.

And that's what I did; I pushed the other way, crouching behind another shed before looking around fanatically. My heart was beating fast, and the anxiety bubbled up in my stomach. I tried to take deep breaths, grabbing onto my shoulder in order to get rid of the pain.

"Fuck fuck fuck. Okay, phew. Lillian get up, come on." I whispered to myself, standing up from the ground. I took off again, running behind buildings as I neared the town hall. The street seemed to be fairly empty, but I wasn't sure.

I decided just to risk it and run straight into the door, fiddling with The doorknob for a second before opening it.

Once I was inside I yelled, calling out for anyway who may have been in there.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" A man asked from beside me. I turned, and saw that he had a mean glare on his face.

"Uh, there's uh, people like, breaking into the fucking town. Can't you hear the gunfire?" I asked, trying to catch my breath.

He nodded slowly, taking a gun from his belt to point at me. My heart dropped.

"Fuck me, man. I just, ugh, come on dude."

He walked closer to me, grabbing the pistol from my jeans before pointing my own gun at me as well. I sighed, putting my hands up in fear that he might shoot me in the face, which I really didn't want to happen.

"Shut up, and turn around." He ordered, frisking me for any other weapons I may have on my person.

"Alright, don't get grabby. Goddamn." I mumbled under my breath. He ran his hand up my back, before pushing me forward.

"Walk, don't make this harder than it has to be."

"Fine, just-"

Before I could even finish my sentence, a shot rang in my ear and liquid gushed onto the side of my face. Blood, I'm guessing.

I looked around the room, and Shane greeted me with a serious look on his face. I was so relieved that it was him, and not some stranger.

"Holy shit, thanks." I breathed, wiping his blood off of my face. Shane nodded, smiling slightly. "Where have you been?"

"Scavenging with a group. Was on my way back when I heard the gunshots, figured I'd have to find you first or you'd be dead." He smirked, leaning down to pick up my gun.

"Wow, thanks." I rolled my eyes, grabbing the gun from his hands before smiling. I was really appreciative of him, even if he didn't know it at that moment.

"Come on, we have to get out of here." Shane grabbed my shoulder, and retracted his hand as he felt the blood oozing from my wound. He instantly went into a mama-bird mode and began to look at it.

"Is it bad?" I asked, wincing every time he touched it. Shane shook his head, clearly relieved that I'd make it.

"Nah, you'll be fine. Your shirt is soaking up most of the blood, but we need to get out of here to patch it up."

"What about our stuff? We can't leave all of that here." I protested, watching as he nodded and walked toward the Governor's office.

"In here." He grabbed my hand, pulling me inside quickly.

Our backpacks were hanging on the wall, along with Shane's rifle. I grinned, taking my pack down from the rusty nail in the wall. Shane took his, and strolled to the window, pushing the glass upward to open it.

"We can get out through here. Go first, I'll cover you in case anything happens."

I nodded, grabbing his hand in case I fell on my face. I crawled into the window pane and jumped down, letting go of his hand as I did. I held up my pistol, searching the vicinity for anyone else. We seemed to be in the clear.

"Come on," I yelled up to him, loud enough so Shane could hear me. He jumped, and landed on his knees. I smiled at him.

"Now where to? They came from the gate, there's no way we'll leave from there."

"Hold on, Lillian. Do you see their jackets?" Shane crouched behind a called trashcan, pointing towards a group of them across the street. I gritted my teeth. 

"Mercenaries? Do you think they tracked us?" I asked, squinting my eyes to get a better look.

"Seems like it. That or they're just all assholes." Shane seemed confused, and angry, all at the same time. His emotions were especially hard to read, which made my blood boil.

I guess it was a good thing that he wasn't predictable, right?

My heart started beating a lot faster than before, causing my chest to constrict as I searched the faces of the Mercenaries in front of us.

"Come on," Shane pulled me away, showing me to the wall that had vines covering it. I watched closely as he unveiled a rotted hole in the wood, kicking at a board across it.

He held back the vines and waited patiently as I crouched down, sneaking slowly through the hole.

Shane followed me, holding his gun upward in case anyone snuck up on us.

But it wasn't good enough that he was cautious. As we quickly ran toward a rusted car, I took a deep breath before working up the courage to peek at the gates. They were broken apart, and Walkers were flooding through now. I sighed.

"So much for that place, huh?"

Shane turned to me, his eyes narrowed as he stood up quickly, aiming his gun behind me.

Whoever he was aiming at took a shot, hitting Shane. I couldn't see where, because before I was able to react, my head was beaten with the end of a shot gun.

My vision darkened and became blurry. My entire body felt paralyzed, and all I could do was lay there, unconscious, as I was carried away by a Mercenary toward one of the military trucks.

Their arms seemed pretty muscular, so I'm guessing that it was a man who had hit me, but I couldn't remember anything after that.

Except the noises. Women screaming at the top of their lungs, people getting chewed up by walkers, men firing off bullet after bullet to get rid of the threat Shane and I had caused.

If only there were a way to travel back, so I could redo everything that happened in the passed two weeks.

But life doesn't work that way, sadly.


End file.
